


Harry Potter Gives a Shit

by talithan



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Adaptation, Anal Sex, Angst, Drama, HP: EWE, M/M, Oral Sex, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2013-04-21
Packaged: 2017-12-08 16:11:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 58,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/763367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talithan/pseuds/talithan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Where are you headed?” “No place special,” Draco fumbled, and flushed further. But then: “I can change that,” said Harry Potter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Coming or Going

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2013 Bottom Draco Adaptations Fest. Harry and Draco as Brian and Justin of Queer as Folk, unlikely as it may seem.
> 
> This is my first fic of significant length, and I'm still a bit flabbergasted that it exists. Huge thanks to appleling and the other mods at the BD fest, ashiiblack for the prompt, Natalie for the beta, Emily for all of the encouragement, and Laurel for cheerleading and being my sounding board. Couldn't have made it through this monster without all of their help :)

It would have happened differently if it had been anyone but Harry Potter— _anyone_ besides Harry Potter. Draco would have been much more level-headed about it, he’s sure of it. But it wasn’t anyone. It was Harry Potter. And now Draco is just going to have to live with it.

—

He crossed the street with trepidation, each step further convincing him that this was a terrible idea and that Astoria’s idea had only sounded brilliant because he was pissed out of his mind. Any moment now the pavement would cave in beneath him and he’d fall into a bottomless hole of shame and keep falling and feeling ashamed and never stop, as it would be, of course, bottomless—or perhaps something more plausible but equally dramatic. Once across, Draco couldn’t seem to make it any further and found himself leaning against a lamp post as if it might ground him. His head swam, and he couldn’t decide whether being sober or shitfaced would be more comforting right now, nor could he decide which best described his current state. Facing this sober would be a much more intimidating prospect, to be sure, but drunk, he would undoubtedly make a complete mess of it. He gripped the lamp post and leaned his forehead against it until he realised it was damp, undoubtedly for some unsavory reason, then abruptly stepped back and wiped his hands on his jeans. His tight, pointedly Muggle jeans, which he wore with a tight, pointedly Muggle t-shirt and black dragon hide boots, since he had to draw the line somewhere.

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. _You aren’t drunk. You can’t be drunk because you and Astoria were only at the Leaky for forty-five minutes, and you are not a lightweight. Astoria is drunk, but you are not drunk, Draco, and you can do this_. His fingers unconsciously reached for the lighter and cigarettes in his pocket, as they did many times a day, but this time he did not have to stop them. This time he could indulge in his filthy Muggle habit and no one would look twice because this time he was on a Muggle street in Muggle London, trussed up like a Muggle slut, looking to get fucked. By a Muggle.

He lit a fag and inhaled, closing his eyes again and waiting for the calm. _You are not drunk_.

But then he opened his eyes, and he _was_ drunk, he had to be.

Because at no point would his sober self _ever_ see Harry Potter emerging from a Muggle club in his own tight jeans and tighter t-shirt, arm slung over his own Muggle slut. Because Harry Potter didn’t wear tight jeans and tight t-shirts and go to clubs to pick up sluts to fuck. Harry Potter smiled winningly at high-profile charity events and memorials and released press statements about the importance of social justice issues. Harry Potter was a humble, private hero who used his spotlight for the service of others and would never, ever _lick a Muggle’s neck_ while _cupping that same Muggle’s crotch_ and—good lord— _grinding his own crotch against the Muggle’s thigh_. These things were simply _not done_ , not by _Harry Potter_.

He stood frozen, still half-leaning against the lamp post and holding the cigarette to his lips, but no longer remembering to breathe. It was Harry Potter. There was no mistaking it—his hair was the same mess it had been the last time Draco had seen him at the Ministry, maybe even messier; he was still glasses-free, as he had been for the last three years or so; he still moved with that easy, casual slouch. But his smile was different, nothing like that easy, charming grin he wore in press photographs. This time it was sly, suggestive, arrogant; a smile promising skills to warrant that confidence. And that casual slouch had turned to a liquid swagger, shockingly sexual rather than merely approachable and easy-going.

Draco flushed as he realised he was half hard just from _watching_ this strange new Harry Potter, and he took a long drag on his cigarette. He was thankful for his lamp post, for holding him up and for being his accomplice in stalling before actually entering the club. He might have walked in as Harry Potter was coming out, might have come face-to-face with him instead of seeing him from a safer distance. He might have had to explain his t-shirt, his jeans, his cigarette, his presence in Muggle London at a club that someone would only patronise if looking for male companionship of a rather explicit nature, and what would he have said—

Oh.

_Oh._

Harry Potter was wearing tight jeans and an absolutely criminal black t-shirt and licking the neck of some Muggle slut _who had a cock_. Harry Potter was probably going to take this man home and, and— _fuck him_ in the _arse_. Or—or take him to an _alley_ , even, or maybe _he_ would be the one to get fucked in the arse—

Draco let out an involuntary strangled yelp and accidentally snapped the cigarette between his fingers.

Harry Potter was _gay_.

Harry Potter had _gay sex_. With _Muggles_. In back alleys, even, possibly. It wasn’t like he could just Apparate with a Muggle, take him home with him. Where did Harry Potter live, anyway? And, for that matter, what had Draco been planning to do, as _he_ certainly couldn’t Apparate a Muggle back to his room at Malfoy Manor—had he been planning to get fucked in the arse in a back alley like Harry Potter? Because Harry Potter— _Harry Potter_ —was a back alley slut who put his hands on men’s crotches and licked men’s necks and probably even sucked men’s—

Another strangled yelp emerged. This was _impossible_ , this couldn’t be _happening_ , this was—he needed another fag. He needed to go home. He needed someone to touch his cock, right fucking now, or he would definitely die.

The first course of action seemed the easiest to achieve. He lit another, and he was still holding the fag and the lighter when:

“Malfoy? Draco Malfoy?”

He dropped both abruptly. And swore, loudly, because Harry Potter was standing right there in front of him and eyeing him curiously and looking like actual sex on legs, the muscles of his arms and torso highlighted by the light on the top of the lamp post that Draco was stupidly standing under. He wordlessly bent to retrieve the lighter and reached for a third cigarette, placing it between his lips in the desperate hope that somehow his mouth being otherwise occupied would make Harry Potter give up and leave him alone and go back to his slut, who was standing back by the entrance looking annoyed.

But Harry Potter didn’t give up, or leave. Instead, he opened his mouth to speak again, and Draco inhaled deeply and prepared his answers. _No, I do not come here often—in fact, I’ve never been. No, I do not take it up the arse. No, I did not realise the nature of this establishment. No, I will not go to the papers. Yes, I will be leaving now. Good night, Potter._ The first two would be true, though they’d likely stop being true very soon (or would have stopped being true very soon if _Harry Potter_ hadn’t come out of that club and ground his erection all over that Muggle and revealed himself to be a _back alley slut_ , oh sweet Merlin, but now, who knows). The third, a blatant lie, would hopefully come across as plausible enough, given the club’s discreet facade. The last two, well, those would depend on Harry Potter. It was his move now.

But he didn’t say any of the things Draco had expected him to say. He just said, “Are you wearing eyeliner?”

Draco dropped his third fag. “Excuse me?”

“You’re wearing eyeliner.”

He’d forgotten all about Astoria’s ridiculous contribution to his appearance (“You’ll look so hot, Draco; it’ll make your eyes pop; they won’t be able to stop looking at you”), which he felt was understandable, given the information he was currently having to process. And now, with Harry Potter fixing him with that horrible sly smile, Draco couldn’t think of a single non-inane response to that statement.

“You’re _gay._ ”

Which apparently meant an inane response was his only option.

But instead of being offended, angry, or even amused, Harry Potter—black-t-shirt-clad, slouching, back alley slut Harry Potter—didn’t even react. He just shook his head slightly and said, “I’m not gay.”

Draco could feel his eyes bulging unflatteringly (and he couldn’t even imagine how that looked, with the eyeliner and all), but he couldn’t help it. “Excuse me, Harry Potter, but you were just _humping_ a _man_ while _licking_ his _neck_ —”

“Been watching long, have you?”

“You are _gay_ , Harry Potter.”

“No, I’m not. I fuck women, too.”

Draco’s mouth was watering so much that he almost choked. “Fuck a lot of people, do you, Harry Potter?”

That horrible grin widened. “‘A lot’ is relative, wouldn’t you say?”

Draco swallowed hard. He knew he must have been flushing dreadfully right then, and all he could hope was that the light from above wasn’t hitting his face well enough for it to show. And then those green eyes were traveling over him, lingering on his t-shirt where he knew it was stretching over his chest, down his legs that he knew looked long and slim in these dark jeans. His cock was probably clearly visible, hard as he was; that had been the point of wearing jeans that fit like this, after all. He wanted to take a time-turner and go back and punch the him who got dressed a half hour earlier in the face. And then punch Astoria before she started putting on his _eyeliner_.

“So how’s it going, then, Malfoy?” His eyes were somewhere below Draco’s belt buckle as he asked, “Had a busy night?”

Draco’s cock was trying as hard as it could to burst through his jeans and fly into Harry Potter’s face. “Just…checking it all out, you know. The bars, I mean. You know, Pistol. Boytoy.” The words just kept coming without Draco’s consent. “Meathook.”

Somehow, the horrible grin looked more knowing, more arrogant, and generally more _horrible_ with each word that came out of Draco’s mouth. “So, then. Where are you headed?”

“No place special,” Draco fumbled, and flushed further.

But then:

“I can change that,” said Harry Potter.

The cheesiest, cockiest line, and somehow it went straight to Draco’s dick, making him emit another terrible muffled yelp. And then Harry Potter hooked a finger through one of Draco’s belt loops and said, “Come on, Malfoy,” and led him around a corner to an empty street and Apparated him away.

—

Harry Potter Apparated them to the entryway of a house that was most likely enormous, if this first peek was any indicator. It all felt strange and incongruous, the grand, showy architecture at odds with the minimal decor. A chandelier hung overhead and a grand staircase at the end of the hall suggested several higher floors, but the walls were all bare of anything but dull gray paint, and the only bit of furnishing in the entire front hall was an umbrella stand and spindly coat rack. Draco couldn’t help wondering how Harry Potter had come to live in a place like this.

He was given no clues, though, as Harry Potter stepped backwards towards that grand staircase and gave him a challenging look. “Coming in?”

“Yes.” Draco stepped forward but then found himself at a loss. Was he—Harry Potter hadn’t really brought him here for _sex_ , had he? He wasn’t really about to have sex with _Harry Potter_. Was he?

Harry Potter pulled that black t-shirt off over his head and Draco felt as though someone had scooped out his brain and dropped it in freezing cold water. He was _painfully_ hard, and just, fuck—

“You’re Harry Potter.”

He seemed amused. “Yes, I’m Harry Potter.”

“I’m in Harry Potter’s house.” Draco’s voice came out shaky but he couldn’t seem to fix that, or stop talking. “I’m—you’re Harry Potter. You’re taking off your clothes, oh Merlin—”

Harry Potter kicked off his shoes and opened his jeans.

Draco yelped again, and then Harry Potter dropped his jeans, and he was not wearing anything under them.

“Harry Potter is taking off his clothes,” he said shakily. “Buggering fuck.”

“Why do you keep calling me Harry Potter?” Harry Potter asked as he stepped out of the jeans, towards Draco. His voice was low, calm, vaguely teasing.

Draco swallowed hard. “Because it’s your name. You’re—you’re naked.”

“Just pick one. A bit awkward using both, isn’t it?”

Draco made a noise that sounded sort of like _nnyuyngyfhfh._ It came out at a much higher pitch than he would have liked, but it seemed he was no longer responsible for what his voice chose to do. “Oh, okay, _Harry_ ,” he said in a tone that he meant to sound mocking but instead sounded shrill and slightly desperate.

Harry Potter—Harry? Potter?—grinned slyly and held his arms wide, palms forward, as though putting himself on full display. Draco was beginning to feel legitimate concern that he might pass out, with all of the blood in his body heading for his groin.

“So? Are you coming or going?” he asked teasingly. As if there were any doubt—as if Draco could see him like _that_ , looking so completely fucking edible, and then just _go_. “Or _coming_ ,” he continued, and paused with the sexiest fucking leer Draco had ever seen, “and then going?”

Draco could only squeak in response.

“Or,” he said, taking a step back towards the staircase, “coming…and staying?”

Draco floundered for words, for some sort of vocal response that wasn’t an excited moan-yell, but couldn’t come up with anything other than _yes come yes I would like to come can I come all over your gorgeous fucking face oh please put that big fat cock in me right fucking now_ and it wasn’t as though he could actually _say_ any of that, even with his involuntary vocal emissions already. So he steeled himself and took a step forward, and then another, until Harry was walking towards him as well and they were meeting in the middle and Potter was _kissing him_ , and pulling Draco towards his beautiful naked body. Draco really was going to pass out, couldn’t possibly survive much more of this, not with Potter’s _tongue in his mouth_ and _hands creeping under his shirt_ and oh, there, pulling that shirt off him entirely and moving his mouth to bite lightly at Draco’s neck and then bite again, harder, on his collarbone. And then his mouth was gone and he was stepping away and Draco let out a completely mortifying groan of protest, but Harry just said, “Let’s go upstairs,” in that absolutely disgusting low voice that sounded like sex, and Draco thought, okay, yes, upstairs, and followed Harry’s _naked, beautiful_ arse to the staircase.

Going upstairs apparently involved pausing to snog heavily at each landing, and sometimes halfway up a flight, so Draco soon lost track of which floor they were on and just assumed Potter would get them to a bed eventually. Or any suitable surface, really. On one of the landings, Potter finally opened Draco’s jeans and wrapped a hand around his erection, stroking it slow and even and teasing, and he kept stroking it even as he walked them further up the stairs, taking the steps backwards but still not stopping until Draco stumbled and fell forwards into him, too distracted by the sensations to climb the stairs properly. Then Potter suddenly took the stairs two at a time, dragging Draco with him and then shoving him against the wall and saying, “You sexy motherfucker,” before kissing him roughly and pinning him against the wall with his whole body and running his hands down his sides and then behind him and kneading his arse through his jeans. They stayed there for longer than they had at any other landing, Harry apparently content to rub his cock against Draco’s still denim-clad hip and suck on his neck and force humiliating moans and breathy noises out of him. It wasn’t until Draco let out a shaky _fff-fhuck_ and jerked his head back against the wall a little too hardthat he finally backed off for a moment, green eyes glassy and pupils blown wide, and tugged Draco through one of the doorways.

Then Draco’s jeans finally came off (with a brief hiccup as he attempted to unlace one boot before remembering his wand, tucked into the other boot, and spelling them to unlace themselves), and they were both naked, and Potter was shoving Draco on to a bed and climbing on top of him. Draco was going to die if he didn’t come soon but that probably wouldn’t be a problem because he would probably just shoot spontaneously, at this rate, just come all over both of them without Potter even having to reach for his dick again.

But then Potter _did_ reach for his dick again, stroking it with that same deliberate slowness, and said, “So what do you like to do?”

Draco could _not_ understand what could possibly motivate Potter to start making small talk when Draco was so _maddeningly close_. He couldn’t help a small groan as he tried to string words together. “I don’t, I—I don’t have a lot of free time, with training, so, I, er, I don’t know, I like to—”

“I mean in _bed_ ,” Potter clarified with a smirk. Draco’s face felt hot with embarrassment, but then again, his entire body felt hot, and his face had probably been bright pink for a full half hour already.

“Er,” he started again, trying to be even remotely self-controlled, “this is fine.”

Potter’s smirk didn’t vanish with his next question. “Are you a top or a bottom?”

Draco nearly came just thinking about it. If Harry’s hand on him felt this good, Harry’s _arse_ —he imagined Harry sitting a little further forward, not stroking Draco’s cock but riding it. “Top,” he said quickly, wondering if this meant—if he would get to—

His eyes darted down from Harry’s face above him to his cock, hard and beautiful and right there next to his own, and he imagined opening his legs and having Potter between them, Potter’s cock _in_ him, and—“And bottom,” he added, thinking of Harry’s weight on top of him shifting and Harry fucking him open and Harry—

“Versatile, then,” Harry said, that horrible grin on his face again, and Draco felt so pleased at the idea that being versatile was something that would please Harry. Merlin, he needed to fuck him, absolutely any way he could. Every way he could. He needed Harry everywhere, on him and in him and under him and _everywhere_.

“Do you like to rim?” was the next question, and Draco didn’t even have to think about it because at this point he was entirely confident that he would enjoy absolutely any sexual act with this man.

“I love it,” he said, or sort of gasped it, as Harry kept moving that hand on his cock.

But Harry stilled his hand and leaned forward slightly. “Go to it, then.”

Draco nearly jerked up to force his cock against the hand still wrapped around it but stopped himself, trying to process the order.

“Well?” Harry’s voice was still low and calm and even, which made Draco feel just the opposite even more.

“What exactly do you mean?” he asked, barely caring that Harry would know he had no idea what he was doing; he just needed to find out what to do so he could _do it_ and _come_ and _make Harry come_ , _fuck_.

And then Harry was smirking and leaning down towards him with that incredible mouth and—

“Bloody hell, Harry, you’re finally home—it _happened_.”

And Ron Weasley strode into the bedroom.

Harry clearly did not find this as dramatic an occurrence as Draco did. He didn’t even get off the _very naked man_ under him, or remove his hand from his cock. No, in fact, he instead began absently stroking Draco’s cock once more, even while he turned and looked over his shoulder at Weasley in the doorway.

“What happened?”

“ _It_ happened, only twenty minutes ago—we’ve been trying your Floo all night, but you’ve been out.”

“Of course I’ve been out, Ron, you—”

“Well, now you're home, and you’re going to have to get rid of whatever you’ve brought home because Ginny’s done it and you have to come and see your—”

And as Harry listened, distracted, his hand tightened slightly, quickened slightly, and Weasley hadn’t even finished his sentence before Draco was coming all over that hand and his stomach and not even Weasley’s presence was enough to temper the force of his orgasm. Harry’s hand stilled and he looked down as though surprised to find Draco there with his come everywhere, but only seconds later he was looking over his shoulder again, now almost frantic. “Wait, it _happened?_ It’s—it’s done? I missed it?”

“You were out, mate. It was over an hour ago. We tried, but—”

He abruptly stopped, and then:

“Fucking hell, did you just wank _Draco Malfoy_ in front of me?” As though somehow the discovery of Draco’s identity made the act suddenly horrifying, more horrifying than it was when he came in and saw his best friend naked and in bed with a man and didn’t react, or more horrifying even than when that man _came_ and he didn’t react.

Harry showed Weasley his hand, briefly, before wiping it on Draco’s chest. “Looks like it.”

“I think I might vomit,” Weasley offered, stepping out of the room.

Draco would have to face Weasley at the Ministry the next day. And the day after, and every weekday for the foreseeable future. He could understand the need to vomit.

Harry was not afflicted with any such impulse, and neither vomited nor looked as though he’d like to. Rather, he got off Draco and took his wand and spelled them both clean, then began dressing. “I have to go,” he said needlessly.

“I,” Draco started, but could not begin to think of what to say.

Harry stepped out of the room and for a moment Draco wondered if it could really end so quickly, if Harry would really just throw on some clothes and leave with neither an explanation nor a goodbye, but then Harry came back in and threw Draco’s jeans at him. As Draco tugged them on, he said conversationally, “Have you ever been with anyone before?”

Draco froze, one leg in the jeans and the other out.

Harry laughed softly. “I figured.”

“Are you—do you—”

“So what makes Draco Malfoy go trawling Muggle clubs for his first cock?”

“I wasn’t _trawling clubs_ ,” Draco insisted as he did up his jeans. “I was—”

He turned around to find Harry standing _right there_ and stopped abruptly.

“You were looking to get fucked,” Harry said, low and soft. He traced a finger over Draco’s skin, just above his waistband. “Dressed up like this. Just begging for it.”

A small squeak escaped Draco’s throat.

“But you haven’t before.” He didn’t ask it like a question, but he paused as though waiting for an answer.

“It’s not as though I have many takers,” Draco retorted quickly, then flushed as he realised how that sounded. “No one wants to fuck a Death Eater,” he continued more quietly, figuring the damage was done.

“I thought you were an Auror now,” Harry said. He was walking back towards the door, and Draco couldn’t make sense of how he switched between _very interested_ and completely unaffected with no warning.

Draco was putting his boots back on (or rather, shoving his feet into them and spelling them to lace themselves) and focused firmly on this task as he answered. “Last year of training.” He felt fabric against his side and reached to grab it before it slid to the ground. His t-shirt—Harry must have summoned it.

“And that doesn’t have the men lining up?” Harry said, close again. Draco shook his head, throat tight. “So you thought you’d go find yourself a nice Muggle.”

Draco pulled his shirt on, resolutely not looking at Harry. “As if you’re one to judge. You were doing the same thing.”

“Ah, but I’m no virgin,” Harry said. His fingers grazed the side of Draco’s face, and Draco closed his eyes. He kept his fingers there, perhaps waiting for Draco to look at him, but he wouldn’t. After a moment, Harry said, “You should go home.”

They stood there like that in silence, Draco’s eyes closed and Harry’s hand on his cheek, until Weasley’s voice came in from the stairs. “Harry, mate, d’you have clothes on yet?”

Draco had almost forgotten they weren’t alone, and he felt his face flush at the reminder, even with Harry’s fingers on his skin. He’d gone home with _Harry Potter_. He’d nearly had sex with _Harry Potter_. _Harry Potter_ had given him a hand job, the completion of which was personally witnessed by _Harry Potter_ ’ _s_ best friend. And he’d somehow started to believe that this was actually happening, that Draco Malfoy having sex with— _losing his virginity_ to, sweet Merlin—Harry Potter was something that could actually happen.

He opened his eyes, and Harry was right there, looking at him so intently. His hand moved then, fingers sweeping lightly down the side of his face to his jaw and neck, coming to rest just above his collarbone. Draco realised there must be marks all over his neck from earlier, possibly even at the exact places that Harry was touching. It made the look he was giving Draco seem oddly intimate, and Draco’s skin felt hot again.

“Come meet my kid,” Harry said softly, with a slight smile. Before Draco could answer, he was already walking out the door.

“Your kid?” Draco repeated, dumbstruck.

“Coming, Ron,” Harry was saying.

His _kid_?

Draco followed him into the hallway, meaning to ask for clarification but having no idea how to do so. But it didn’t matter because Harry didn’t give him a chance to ask, didn’t give him a chance to say anything at all, merely ushered him through a door and towards a fireplace in the next room. Weasley was saying, “You’re not _bringing him_ , are you?” but Harry was saying, “Come on, then,” and wrapping his arm around Draco’s waist and tugging Draco forwards, so that as Draco stepped forward to catch himself, he stepped with Harry into the green flames.

“The Burrow,” Harry called, and Draco braced himself.

—

Nearly all of the Weasleys and their assorted spouses were present for the occasion, the nature of which Draco was still questioning as he attempted to convince himself that he had somehow misunderstood Harry’s words. He didn’t know how to ask ( _Your_ _kid?_ ), not with a half dozen Weasleys crowded into the sitting room and all _looking at him_.

What struck him as strange, as he started to think about it, was that no one asked why he was there. No one seemed to require an explanation as to why Harry had arrived with another man in tow, another man who was wearing tight Muggle clothing and eyeliner and almost certainly had a series of bruises blooming all up and down the side of his neck. Of course, this set of clues was likely self-explanatory to a certain extent, but in the same vein, no one seemed to require an explanation as to why the man Harry had brought was _Draco Malfoy_.

No, instead of questions or accusations, he was treated to a few curious looks and some eye-rolls. Which somehow felt worse, in a way, though it was better than the series of hexes and curses that would have flown his way if this had happened four or five years ago.

Then the woman on the squashy sofa in the middle of the room looked up, looked at him. And immediately burst into peals of laughter, her freckled face pinkening, her red hair falling loose over her shoulders as she tossed her head back.

She was holding a tiny pink baby in her arms.

Draco was again hit with the urge to vomit. He made to turn around and step back into the kitchen, to Floo home and forget any of this ever happened, but then Weasley ( _Weasley_ Weasley, Ron Weasley) was in the way as he appeared in the doorway. At the same moment, Granger crossed the room towards them; Draco hadn’t spotted her there beside the squashy sofa, what with all of the Weasley red demanding his attention much more loudly. She put her wand to his neck and he again instinctively stepped backwards, but then he felt the slight tingle of magic and realised she was getting rid of the marks Harry had made. He didn’t feel the small twinge that came with healing spells, only the lighter touch of a concealment charm; he guessed she’d chosen the latter because it was quicker, though he couldn’t fathom why she’d bother hiding something everyone in the room had already seen.

Ginny Weasley, on the couch with Harry’s baby in her arms, was still laughing.

A lot of things were making sense now. Why Ginny Weasley had not participated in the recently concluded Quidditch season. Why she hadn’t been seen in public in months. She hadn’t been following in Harry Potter’s footsteps, retreating into a life of privacy and carefully selected media appearances. She had been _pregnant_. With his _baby_. And keeping this a secret, for some reason.

“Ginny?” Weasley prompted warily, shoving past Draco to get to her. “What’s—”

“Harry!”

And then Draco knew why Granger had hidden those marks, as Arthur and Molly Weasley came into the room, both grinning widely.

Harry’s arm dropped from around his waist and he walked toward the squashy sofa.

“Draco?” said Arthur Weasley.

“I,” Draco started, and stopped.

“Harry, say hello to your son,” said Ginny Weasley.

“James,” said Harry, and reached out to hold _his son_. There was a warmth in his eyes that seemed so incongruous that it made Draco realise how cold he’d been before now.

“Draco,” Granger started, whispering quickly in his ear, “it isn’t what you think.”

“He looks just like you,” Molly Weasley told Harry untruthfully.

“That’s Potter’s child,” Draco said dumbly.

“Yes, but—” Granger started.

“Why is Draco here?” Arthur Weasley asked the room at large.

“—he isn’t fucking around on Ginny,” Granger insisted, speaking quietly but firmly. “They have a son, now, but they aren’t a couple. It wasn’t—it wasn’t planned.”

“Harry brought him,” Ginny told him, beaming like she thought it was the most charming, hilarious thing.

“James Sirius Potter,” Molly Weasley said with pride, and Draco thought he really might vomit.

“Do you—” started Granger, and she was scowling, though not at Draco. She was scowling at Harry. “Do you want to get some air?”

Draco let her lead him out of the sitting room, past the handful of Weasley men and their wives that had assembled to welcome the newest addition to the family, through the small kitchen that he and Harry had entered from, and out the door to the garden. Granger crossed her arms and turned to face him. It felt like an interrogation, but she didn’t say anything.

“He wasn’t planned?” Draco asked to fill the silence.

Granger shook her head. “They haven’t—they’ve been together off and on for years, but it’s never been serious. Ginny’s focused on Quidditch, and Harry’s…Harry. They didn’t mean for her to get pregnant, but they decided to keep him.”

She looked thoughtful, but she didn’t say anything more. Neither did Draco. He didn’t know what to say. He wondered why Ginny Weasley thought it was so _funny_ that Harry Potter had taken Draco Malfoy home, why it didn’t seem to bother her at all. Why a room full of Weasleys also weren’t bothered, seemingly only mildly curious.

“I’m sorry,” Granger said, and Draco didn’t understand. Granger didn’t have anything to be _sorry_ about. She had done so much more for him than he deserved. When his three-year probation was finally up, when he applied to the Auror Academy for the third time (fully expecting to be rejected a third time), it was Granger who fought for his acceptance. Granger and Arthur Weasley. She insisted there was no reason _not_ to accept him, not with his probation (during which he had been a model citizen, going back to Hogwarts and then working a series of menial jobs while faced with rejection after rejection) now over, not with his seven Outstanding NEWTs, not with his trial having declared him a minor whose only crimes were committed under duress. For her final year studying law, she made Draco her project, and used her future father-in-law’s Ministry connections to ensure success. It wasn’t personal. It wasn’t an act of friendship. But he’s indebted to her, more so than he would have ever thought possible.

Almost as indebted as he is to Harry for speaking for his family at their trials, for giving him back his wand, for ensuring that he could return to Hogwarts and finish his education at all. For saving his life.

“He’s so _selfish_ ,” Granger continued, and it took Draco a moment to realise she meant Harry. “You’re working so hard. Why would he try to ruin that?”

“Ruin that?” Draco repeated.

“He shouldn’t lead you on like that,” she said, glaring ahead, her anger fixed on some flower bush.

Draco thought of how he went out tonight with the singular goal of getting fucked, of Harry kissing him and calling him a sexy motherfucker, of that strangely intimate way Harry looked at him before they left. “He isn’t leading me on.”

Granger looked back at him, and for a second she was still glaring. It felt odd to be on the receiving end of her anger again, after that year of her always being angry on his behalf, and he didn’t like it at all. Her gaze softened, turned to pity. “Draco,” she began, and he didn’t want to hear her tell him all about how Harry didn’t care about him.

“I went out tonight looking for sex, Granger. Not a _boyfriend_. Don’t worry about me.”

She looked very much as though she’d like to comment on this attitude of his, but instead she said, “All right.” After a moment, she added, “How is training, then?”

It wasn’t a new question; she would check in with him every month or two and ask how he was doing. Whether his peers were giving him a hard time, whether his superiors were treating him fairly. She would ask him to coffee and they would “catch up” for maybe an hour, and then they’d go their separate ways. She was looking for a cause, something to fight for. Draco didn’t give it to her. He was doing fine. Maybe some of the other trainees shunned him, while others mocked him. Maybe some of the Aurors judged him more harshly than the others. It wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle.

“It’s all right,” he said. It had been three weeks since the last time she’d asked, and nothing had changed. “This month is a lot of disguise and undercover practice.”

She nodded. Her brows were still knitted; he waited for more “concern.”

“Molly and Arthur think he might marry Ginny now,” Granger said. “He won’t. Harry doesn’t do anything anyone thinks he should. He only does what he wants.”

“He was at a Muggle club,” Draco said. “A gay club.”

Granger wasn’t surprised at the idea of Draco going to a Muggle club. When she had helped him get into the Auror Academy, he had been working as a waiter at a Muggle restaurant.

“And he took you home instead?” _Instead_ , like it was a given that he had plenty of prospects other than Draco, like she knew that he had been grinding up against some Muggle and about to take him home when Draco had arrived.

Draco shrugged in response.

“So you just happened to run into each other, then.” She said it slowly, as though revising her understanding of how it had happened. Draco shrugged again, and Granger sighed. “I know you said you were just looking for sex, Draco, but you should know—this is just what Harry does. This is how he is now. He has meaningless sex and takes all sorts of Muggle drugs, and he’ll even bring a one night stand along when he comes to meet his child for the first time, for a laugh. He’s just…like this.”

They stood there outside in silence, as Draco tried to wrap his mind around Hermione Granger warning him off Harry Potter for his sake, for _Draco’s_ sake, rather than the other way around. He reached into his back pocket for his lighter and a fag, but found the lighter absent. It must have fallen out on Harry’s floor somewhere. He lit it with his wand instead as Granger watched curiously.

Noises drifted out from the kitchen; it seemed Weasley and one of his brothers had come to escape the sitting room.

“…doesn’t want to either.”

“Try convincing Mum,” said Weasley.

“Her hints aren’t even subtle anymore.” He spoke quietly, conscious of those out in the sitting room who might overhear. Draco could hardly make out the words. “All of this ‘both parents’ nonsense.”

“He’ll have both parents. And he’ll have all of us.”

There were assorted clinks and clatters as they spoke. It sounded like they were stacking plates or cups, or maybe pouring tea.

“I can sort of see her point, though,” the other Weasley said. “You’d think Harry would—I mean, what with his parents—”

“He would if Ginny wanted him to,” Weasley countered. “He’d do it for her. But she doesn’t want it any more than he does, and the pair of them will _never_ do it just to please Mum.”

“But would they do it for James?” The other Weasley’s voice took on a shrill tone. “What will happen when Ginny has practice and matches all the time and Harry is out with complete strangers and neither of them is ever home? Do you really think they can go on like they have now that they have him?”

“Since when do you agree with Mum?” Weasley asked in horror.

“Only playing devil’s advocate,” the other Weasley countered, amusement in his voice. “They’re really going to have to work on their answers to her questions, or she’ll never shut up.”

Weasley murmured an assent, and then there was loud laughter from the sitting room and Draco couldn’t hear anything further in the kitchen besides the scattered clinks and clatters.

He looked out at the garden—charming and well kept, but nothing compared to his mother’s at the Manor, of course—and smoked in silence for a while. Granger stood with him, her arms crossed, and he wasn’t sure if she were waiting for him to say something or merely avoiding what waited inside.

“So they slept together,” Draco started after a spell, even though he didn’t really want to know, “and have a baby, but they aren’t together and don’t want to be.”

Granger shook her head, though it looked more like a gesture of disappointment than refutal. “They aren’t relationship types,” she said with a small shrug. “Ginny has week-long flings with other Quidditch players, and Harry—Harry has at least five partners a week, Draco.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“You deserve to know.”

There were footsteps in the kitchen again, and the door swung open.

Granger didn’t say anything in greeting, just frowned, and Draco knew it was Harry.

“Wasn’t sure if you’d left,” he said, his voice low and soft, but Draco didn’t turn around.

“How’s Ginny?” Granger asked. It sounded like a question. Just a question, not a hint or accusation.

Draco heard the door shut and felt Harry coming close behind him. “She’s good. Exhausted, though. Molly’s getting her into bed.”

“He’s beautiful,” Granger said, and this did seem like an accusation, somehow.

“He is. Ron’s holding him.” Draco could hear the horrible smile. “Might start trying to put one in you, if you’re not careful.”

“ _Harry_ ,” she said, playfully scolding, and Draco could not understand how their friendship worked at _all_ because now she sounded amused. “Are you looking after him while Ginny gets her sleep?”

“I think that’s more than covered,” Harry said. “I’m going home.”

“You could take him with you,” Granger pointed out, but she already seemed resigned.

“He should be with his mother.”

“And his father.”

“Everyone’s heading home,” Harry said, sidestepping her comment. “You might want to get ready to do the same.” Draco couldn’t tell if he was talking to Granger or to Draco himself, and he didn’t look back to check.

Granger gave him a _look_ , and Draco knew Harry was giving her his horrible charming smile because then her eyes were smiling even while her lips remained pursed.

The door swung open and shut again; Harry was back inside. Granger stared after him for a moment, and then turned to Draco.

“What are you going to do?”

Her voice was so gentle that Draco could almost believe she genuinely cared about him. Maybe she truly wanted to be a friend to him.

Maybe she was looking for a victim to champion.

“I don’t know.” His fag had gone out, and now he fiddled with the stub that remained.

“You can talk to me, Draco. Whenever you need to.”

He stared hard at the flower bushes. “He said everyone was leaving. Maybe you should go.”

She didn’t bother pointing out that perhaps he ought to leave too. She only placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and gave it a soft squeeze. Then the door swung open and shut, and Draco was alone.

He lit another fag and tried to think. He had been on edge with Granger there and thought he’d feel better with her gone, but alone he felt even more scattered. Now he was shivering, despite the pleasantly warm night air. He couldn’t process any of it. Nothing made any sense. Not running into Harry Potter on a Muggle street after five years of seeing him only at Ministry events, and a few times in the halls or lifts. Not Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley being in this strange non-relationship and _having a baby_. Not Hermione Granger defending him and making Harry Potter the bad guy.

The only part of any of this that felt right to Draco, he realised as he thought, was Harry kissing him, Harry’s body pressed full against his, Harry’s eyes focused on only him. Draco suddenly couldn’t imagine _not_ going back to his home, not following through. He suddenly felt quite certain that he needed it more than anything.

He opened the door and went back through the tiny kitchen to the sitting room. Granger wasn’t there, only the senior Weasleys, and Harry talking to Weasley. He was holding the baby—his _son_ —and standing very close to Weasley, speaking quietly.

Then Molly Weasley stood and approached Harry, all smiles, and Harry handed her the baby. Arthur Weasley stood as well, but he walked to Draco instead.

“Draco,” he said, and placed a fatherly hand on his shoulder. “All right, there?”

When Granger had been helping Draco, she had recruited Arthur Weasley. In the post-war Ministry, he was respected, with all sorts of connections and more sway with the right people than Lucius Malfoy had ever been able to buy. He took Draco to lunch a few times, and they bonded over Muggle curiosities, like refrigerators.

“Yeah,” Draco said. “I’m all right.”

Draco’s father had been furious, until Draco finally snapped and pointed out that despite Arthur Weasley’s failings, he was doing much more to save the Malfoy name than Lucius could possibly manage with his ten years of house arrest. Lucius stopped bothering Draco about it after that. He stopped bothering Draco altogether.

Arthur clapped his shoulder and gave him a small smile. Then he and his wife went up the rickety staircase with the baby, leaving him with Weasley and Harry, who were no longer in conversation, but rather looking at Draco with irritation and barely contained lust, respectively.  
Harry was already approaching Draco, a downright predatory look in his eyes. Weasley followed behind him, shaking his head.

“What do you want to do, Malfoy?” Harry asked, just as Weasley said, “Go home, Malfoy.”

“You want me to fuck you, don’t you,” Harry said softly, like it was just him and Draco, and it wasn’t a question. Draco nodded anyway.

“What did you take, Harry?” Weasley asked, exasperated.

“I’m going to. I’m going to fuck you all night.”

“Harry?” Weasley repeated.

Harry turned to him, grinning. “ _A, B, C, D, E, E, E,_ ” he sang.

“Malfoy, you should really go home,” Weasley insisted. “It’s not that I don’t like you. Really. But Harry isn’t Harry right now, Malfoy. Do you know what ecstasy is? It’s a Muggle drug, Malfoy, and Harry is completely fucked up on it, so you should really…”

He seemed to give up then. Draco couldn’t really blame him, seeing as he was kissing Harry and not giving much thought to anything Weasley was saying.

“…go home,” Weasley finished after a beat, sounding desperate.

“He’s going with me,” Harry said. His hand was down the back of Draco’s jeans. A miraculous feat, given their fit.

“He’s going home.”

Draco pulled away from Harry just enough to look Weasley firmly in the eyes. “I’m going with him.”

“Ron,” came Granger’s voice from the stairs. “Has Harry gone yet?”

“Not yet,” Harry said, and leaned in to suck on Draco’s neck again. He wondered if the glamour had held.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Granger said, her voice closer now.

“ _Malfoy_ ,” Weasley warned.

Harry pulled back slightly, grinning, and then Draco felt the pull of Apparition and held on tight.

—

Draco expected Harry to continue in the same vein once they were alone—more hand-down-jeans, mouth-on-neck action—but when Draco stepped to the side to catch his footing, Harry let them separate. He looked at Draco and his eyes seemed so clear and focused in that moment that he wondered if Weasley had lied about the Muggle drug. Draco leaned in to kiss him again, but Harry grabbed him by his upper arms, holding him out of kissing range.

“Why didn’t you leave?”

“Why did you bring me with you?” Draco countered.

Harry didn’t answer, only stared at Draco with those disgusting, absolutely criminal green eyes.

“Did you know that Hermione Granger and Arthur Weasley were responsible for my acceptance into the Auror training program?” Draco asked.

Harry remained silent, but his eyes widened momentarily, just a fraction, and Draco knew this was news to him.

“Granger and I meet for coffee about once a month. Arthur takes me to lunch every now and again as well. Did you know I’ve had dinner in their home? Arthur and Molly had me over with Granger and Weasley. So if you were trying to shock them, Harry, by bringing a big, bad Death Eater along, and have a laugh, well, you failed. I’m just Draco to them now. Neutered. Completely harmless.”

Harry’s fingers were digging hard into Draco’s arms. “I wasn’t thinking of you as a _Death Eater_ ,” he protested.

“Then why?”

“I didn’t want to send you home like that,” Harry said. He didn’t expand on what he meant by ‘like that,’ and Draco wasn’t sure he wanted to ask. Harry’s fingers loosened. “And I thought Ginny would have a laugh,” he added after a moment.

Draco shook out of his grip. “She certainly did.”

“Hey,” Harry said, and one of his hands was on Draco again, just resting on his shoulder now. “Hey,” he repeated, and then they were kissing—slow and teasing at first, but soon hard and fierce. And it seemed so completely unfair that merely _kissing_ would turn Draco on this much. He wasn’t entirely inexperienced. He _had_ kissed before, plus a bit of dry humping and a couple of hand jobs. But Harry—Harry was so much more intense about it. Draco felt the overwhelming sensation of being the singular focus of every bit of Harry’s attention in that moment, as though he were giving not only his every thought to Draco, but also the entirety of his physical being, from the press of his hips to his broad shoulders to the knee nudging Draco’s legs apart.

Draco wanted _everything_.

Harry got them both naked again. Draco missed most of it, what with all the kissing. He was glad at least one of them was able to focus; Draco probably couldn’t have even opened his own jeans, let alone removed his shirt while scarcely breaking the kiss. Then he was on his back on Harry’s bed again, Harry on top of him again, and despite the lingering fear—of disappointment, of pain, of dissatisfaction, or worse, of enjoying it too much—Draco felt with utter clarity that he _belonged_ there, spread out underneath Harry, ready to take whatever Harry wanted to give, or to give whatever Harry wanted to take.

Harry was pressing his mouth all over, sometimes with his teeth and tongue, and Draco wondered whether it might all be _too_ much, if it might feel _too_ good, as Harry started to nudge at his side. “Roll over,” Harry said, voice husky, and Draco would have obeyed any order given in that voice.

_This is it_ , Draco thought. _Harry is going to fuck me. Harry Potter is going to fuck me. He’s going to open up my arsehole and put his prick in it. His big, fat prick. He’ll fill me up with that cock and then fill me up with come and I’ll feel it for days, and I’ll see it for days because he’ll grab me so hard he’ll leave bruises, marking me like I’m his—_

It was around then that Draco realised Harry was not, in fact, putting that big, fat prick in his arsehole. He was instead giving him more of those wet, open-mouthed kisses, over Draco’s shoulder blades and down his spine. His hands came down to rest on the backs of Draco’s thighs, loosely holding him down. Draco felt a bit relieved—he’d pictured Harry fucking him face-to-face, and perhaps there was hope yet—but then he began to wonder what Harry’s aim could be, if it wasn’t going to involve his cock. Draco’s back couldn’t possibly be that interesting. Harry was licking a stripe down the small of his back, probably tasting Draco’s sweat, and while it felt _nice_ , Draco would definitely prefer some attention to his cock, or to Harry’s cock, or to both at once, or maybe some more kissing—

Harry’s mouth was still moving. It was continuing lower. If he kept going—

Draco felt the warmth of Harry’s face, Harry’s breath, between his arse cheeks.

His tongue—his _tongue_ —touched Draco’s hole. It gave it a long, wet lick.

Draco’s whole body jerked, and Harry’s grip on his thighs tightened to firmly hold him down. Draco gasped in surprise, a sound that quickly turned into a moan of protest as Harry’s tongue—Harry’s unbelievable, hot, _dirty_ tongue—went away.

“Now you know what rimming is,” came Harry’s voice from down between his cheeks, and Draco could hear his horrible, self-satisfied smile. He wanted to say something back, something to take him down a notch—how could anyone possibly be so pleased with himself when he’d just _licked an arsehole_ —but then Harry’s tongue was back and he wasn’t capable of a full coherent thought, never mind speech.

He couldn’t comprehend what was happening. Harry was licking his arse, sometimes kissing it, like he loved doing it, like nothing could please him more. Harry was _licking his arse_ , and it should have made him seem low somehow, giving Draco pleasure (because yes, it felt good despite Draco’s every instinct telling him it shouldn’t) in such a degrading way, but instead it seemed like Harry was the one in power, like he was doing it because he wanted to and Draco’s gratification was purely incidental. Which was somehow making it all even sexier, and Draco didn’t want to think about what that meant.

He knew this was a thing people did, but he’d always assumed it was a strange thing to want, that people only did it out of love for their partners, or perhaps as a bizarre, uncomfortable kink, never discussed aloud. But Harry had asked him to do this earlier and was now doing it himself. Quite eagerly. Harry was touching Draco in a place so _private_ , and while Draco had been mentally prepared for his cock and probably his fingers, he hadn’t expected his mouth. Even while it seemed absolutely filthy, it felt tender, even sweet. He couldn’t decipher which of the mess of sensations and emotions made this feel so amazing or whether it was all of them combined.

He felt himself relaxing, opening up, and when a fingertip joined the tongue on his hole, his hips jerked slightly and the finger slipped in, slick with lube. Draco hadn’t noticed Harry summoning it; perhaps he’d had it with him from the beginning—Draco hadn’t noticed, but he was finding it difficult to pay attention to much of anything but the sheer _feeling_. At this point he had his face pressed into his arm, and now he bit down to try to muffle the noises he’d inevitably let out.

The lube felt cold at first, in contrast to Harry’s hot mouth, but it seemed to warm up as Harry worked his fingers in. Harry was doing all sorts of things that Draco might have thought strange, were he thinking at all. Things like nuzzling Draco’s arse cheeks and telling him he had a pretty hole and saying _You’re mine, Malfoy, all mine_. Draco was hard and sweating and he agreed fully: _All yours, always yours_.

“Want you on your back,” Harry said, fingers still working, and Draco felt so hot and liquid that he wasn’t sure he _could_ get on his back. Harry wasn’t even fucking him yet. Harry was going to _fuck_ _him_. Draco would last seconds, he was sure of it.

Harry got him on his back, and Draco was torn between disappointment at the loss of his fingers and thrill at the promise of his cock. But although Harry was right where Draco needed him, he wasn’t yet pressing inside. He leaned down close, and Draco was overwhelmed by his sheer _presence_. This close, he filled Draco’s field of vision—his broad shoulders and muscular arms that seemed to pin Draco down to the bed despite not making physical contact, the dusting of dark hair across his chest, the tensed muscles of his abdomen. His unbelievable eyes, clear and fixed on Draco’s own. His full, shining lips, almost close enough to kiss. Draco wanted to kiss him, and he didn’t know if that made him disgusting, or if he cared whether it did.

“I used a cleaning charm, before,” Harry said, and perhaps Draco had been a little obvious in his staring.

“But your wand—”

“I always do it wandlessly,” he clarified. “You know, Muggles.”

The thought of Harry doing that to other people—complete strangers, at that—would have bothered Draco, but he was too busy following through on his kissing urges to be bothered. Harry’s hips pressed hard against Draco’s inner thighs, forcing his legs to spread further. Even though Harry had reportedly cleaned it first, Draco still felt a dirty thrill at the knowledge of where that mouth had just been.

“I’m going to fuck you,” Harry said between kisses, voice rough, and Draco thrust up against him involuntarily. Harry shifted his weight, pulling his legs forward so he was more kneeling than lying between Draco’s legs. He moved Draco’s legs, holding him loosely around his calves. “Put your legs up over my shoulders,” he said softly, guiding Draco into position. “That’s it.” Harry paused then, not yet pushing inside. “Now, if you’re going to be fucking Muggles,” he said, “you’re going to have to learn to use condoms. Do you know what condoms are?”

Draco nodded, panting. He hated how it sounded, but he couldn’t help it.

“Do you know how to put one on?”

He shook his head. He thought he probably understood the gist of it, but he couldn’t _do_ it, not right now, with Harry naked and hard and so overwhelmingly gorgeous.

“A demonstration, then,” Harry said, producing a wrapped condom from the bedside table. “Watch.” He unwrapped it and tossed the wrapper away. “Pinch the tip,” he said, doing exactly that, “so there’s room for come. If there isn’t room, the condom can break.” He brought it to the head of his cock and rolled it down the full length of it, then reached for the small bottle of lube again. “Always use water-based lube. Oil-based lube causes tears in the condom.” The movement of his hand on his cock was mesmerizing.

“Got it?” Harry asked, and Draco’s eyes flew back up to his face. He nodded mutely; he felt reasonably certain that images of Harry’s demonstration were now burned permanently into his memory.

Harry reached down between their bodies and Draco felt the head of his cock nudging at his hole. It seemed so much larger than his fingers had been, so much thicker than any toy Draco had used by himself before. This was nothing like _anything_ Draco had done by himself before. There was another body here with him, another person, warm and alive and solid and apparently wanting this just as much as Draco did. He wanted Harry, but more importantly, _Harry wanted him_ , and that magnified his arousal more than anything else.

“All right?” Harry asked.

“It’s fine. I’m fine.” Harry held eye contact, seeming so steady and solid while Draco felt anything but. “Just…” Draco started. “Go slow, all right?”

Harry didn’t say anything, but there—there it was: Harry’s cock pushing into Draco’s body, stretching him open even as he automatically resisted. This was nothing, _nothing_ , like when Draco fucked himself on a dildo. Harry was larger and so, so hot; Draco wasn’t sure if he was imagining it, but he could feel Harry’s heartbeat, right there in his prick. And there was Harry’s abdomen against the backs of Draco’s thighs, his shoulders hooked behind Draco’s knees, his hands gripping Draco hard, his eyes looking down at Draco as if—as if he were the very center of Harry’s world.

It was _so much_ , and Harry was everywhere, and he was only barely inside. As he pushed in further Draco wasn’t sure he could take it; it felt like his body was at capacity already, and Harry couldn’t have put in more than an inch or so. Draco couldn’t help gasping.

“It hurts. Does it always hurt?”

“A little,” Harry said, stilling, “but that’s a part of it. Now relax,” he instructed, and Draco tried to relax. He focused on Harry’s skin against his, on the sweat on his neck and chest, on his ridiculously mussed hair. On the way he was looking at Draco like he was the most important thing.

Harry started to move again, very slowly. He bent low above Draco, pushing his legs down harder between Harry’s chest and his own. His face was so close. His eyes were so green, and so clear. “I want you to always remember this.” He spoke gently, quietly, and kept pushing in. “So that no matter who you’re ever with, I’ll always be there.”

Then he stopped moving, and Draco realised it was because he was all the way in. And he knew he _would_ always remember this; the feeling of complete fullness, the painful stretch, the twinge of pride at having taken all of it; Harry’s face above his own, close and caring; Harry’s weight on him, Harry’s rough breathing, Harry’s skin on him everywhere. They moved together, and Draco felt that sense of utter _belonging_ , with Harry on him and in him and so completely _with_ him that Draco forgot that they were ever anything but _this_ to each other.

The feeling consumed him completely.

—

Draco woke up to an alarm that wasn’t his, to a loud, insistent beeping and buzzing rather than the gently insistent talking alarm to which he was accustomed. And he was in a bed that wasn’t his, and the arm thrown across his body, reaching for the source of all the beeping and buzzing, wasn’t his either.

The alarm stopped. Harry stayed where he was, arm draped over Draco so casually, like they slept like this all the time. Draco thought about Harry fucking him. Harry telling him to always remember it. Harry coming inside him. Harry falling asleep holding Draco close, then waking Draco up an hour later and rolling him over and fucking him again. Harry saying things like _I’ve always wanted to do this_ and _You’re fantastic_ , hot and close to Draco’s ear as he moved.

He rolled over, facing Harry, and put his own arm around him in turn. Like they slept like this all the time.

Then Harry opened his eyes and started to sit up, squinting at his surroundings. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Draco swallowed hard and closed his eyes. “You said I could stay. We…”

He wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence, and he looked at Harry as if he might hold some clue.

“I know what happened. I was there,” Harry said, either glaring at Draco or squinting against the sunlight. “I remember everything…perfectly.”

He was still looking around as if he didn’t understand where he was, seemingly more confused by his surroundings than Draco, even though it was his own bedroom. Draco wondered if this was an effect of that Muggle drug.

He looked at the clock—7:30. He wasn’t sure why Harry would set an alarm for such an early hour, but then, he really didn’t know much of anything about how Harry spent his days. A reclusive, unemployed, and apparently highly sexed hero didn’t have to wake up early for a 9-5 job, but perhaps he had other things that got him up with the sun. Regardless, Draco was thankful for the alarm; he had to be at the Ministry in an hour and a half, and now he had time for a shower.

“Can I take a shower?” he asked Harry, who still seemed disoriented.

“Yeah, but hurry up. It’s down one floor, on your right…I think.”

Draco went down one floor and found the bathroom on his right. It hurt to walk, but it wasn’t the crippling pain he’d feared. It was a satisfying sort of ache, like the sort he felt for a day or so after a hard workout. He didn’t mind it at all. It was almost _nice_ , even—a constant reminder of what he’d done the night before.

What he’d done the night before—with Harry. What he and Harry had done, together, the night before. What they’d done together the night before, repeatedly.

It seemed at once perfectly natural and completely unreal.

Harry’s shower was enormous and modern, just a simple glass panel separating it from the otherwise old-fashioned and ornate bathroom. The whole home was incongruous, Draco thought as he started the water, with its high ceilings and minimal furnishings, blank walls and ostentatious fixtures. He wondered again how Harry had come to live in a place like this.

The hot water was soothing as he stepped into it, relaxing his muscles and alleviating the unfortunate side effects of an active night and less than three hours of sleep. He closed his eyes and leaned into it; there was more than enough time for an indulgent and overlong shower. He could hit pause for a moment and pretend this was his always, and not his just-once.

“You didn’t mention that I had a kid,” came Harry’s voice from behind him. Then Harry’s hands were on him, smoothing over the skin of his back.

“You said you remembered everything,” Draco countered.

Harry started soaping up his back. “I did,” he insisted, but he wasn’t very convincing. Draco wondered what had reminded him.

“Are you going to see him today?”

“Later. I have a meeting with the Minister and a press conference on the werewolf legislation Hermione is pushing through this week.”

“Are you going to raise him?”

“Yeah, it’ll be me and Gin both,” Harry said distractedly.

“It’s important that a child knows he’s wanted,” Draco said.

“Even if he wasn’t?” Harry muttered, and Draco knew it was rhetorical but he wanted to say something anyway. Something like _I saw the way you looked at him, Harry Potter. You don’t fool me_. His face had changed when he saw his son, and Draco wouldn’t forget that.

Harry’s hands continued all over, cleaning his arms and chest and thighs and arse. Draco found the eucalyptus-scented shampoo and washed his hair himself, while Harry’s hands lingered on his arse. He seemed to decide they were both sufficiently clean and fixed his mouth to Draco’s neck again, turning Draco to face him. Draco was beginning to suspect Harry had a bit of a neck thing.

“You up for more?” Harry whispered in his ear.

By way of answering, Draco pressed his hips flush against Harry’s, and Harry let out a low, absolutely delicious noise at the pressure on his cock. Then he slid to his knees, mouth moving over Draco’s skin on the way down, and suddenly there he was, wet and naked and on his knees for Draco, mouth open for Draco’s cock, eyes mischievous and confident. It was the sort of thing Draco might have imagined for wanking purposes at one point or another, but it was _real_ , it was _happening_. Harry was wrapping his hand around Draco’s cock, holding it in place for his mouth, and then his tongue was on it and Draco had to close his eyes so as not to come from the sight alone. And even then, he couldn’t last long, not with Harry’s hands on him, touching his thighs and balls and arse _just so_ , all while his mouth worked at his cock. It made the filthiest little wet noises; Draco could hear them over the sound of the water.

When Draco came, it wasn’t like it had been with Harry inside him. It was quicker, and not as all-consuming; it didn’t leave him boneless and utterly spent. Still, he had trouble staying upright and had to lean against the shower wall for a moment as his breathing steadied. He felt Harry getting to his feet, and it hit him that Harry had just been completely focused on Draco’s pleasure. That he’d just come in Harry’s _mouth_ —it seemed so _close._ He thought of Harry coming in his arse, and he remembered that Harry had surely done this with countless other people.

But Harry wasn’t with other nameless, faceless people right now; he was with Draco, pressing against him with his whole body and nuzzling his neck. Draco opened his eyes. Harry pulled back to grin at him. His face was flushed, and his lips were red. He kissed Draco hard and licked at his lips, but when Draco started to deepen it, Harry pushed at his shoulder and turned so he was leaning back against the shower wall with Draco standing in front of him. He pushed at Draco’s shoulder again, and he was pushing Draco _down_ , and then Draco understood.

He let Harry push him down to his knees. Harry’s cock was _right there_ , right in front of his face, thick and hard and red, and Draco was already starting to get hard again, so turned on at the thought of what he was about to do. He held it, the way Harry had held his, and licked the tip. Harry’s breath hitched. Draco looked up at him and couldn’t suppress a groan at the sight—Harry pink-faced, lips parted, eyes heavy-lidded and fixed on Draco. He sucked on the head of Harry’s cock, keeping his eyes on Harry’s face and watching every minute shift in his expression.

He understood why Harry had wanted to go down on him just now, and why he’d rimmed him last night. Having this sort of power over another human being was incredibly heady. Harry didn’t trust him, would probably never trust him, but he trusted him with _this_. He was the reason Harry was making that face, making those noises, tensing and sighing and looking down at him like he was everything. Draco had to close his eyes at points, and sometimes couldn’t help glancing at the cock he was sucking, but his eyes kept returning to Harry’s face and his expression of utter pleasure. Draco stroked himself as he sucked, and he was almost there when Harry swore loudly, hands tangled in Draco’s wet hair, and held his head firmly in place as he filled his mouth with come.

He pulled Draco roughly to his feet and kissed him, messy and open-mouthed, like he just wanted to taste the come in his mouth. Draco’s first instinct had been to spit it out; he didn’t particularly care for the taste. But mid-kiss like this, he focused less on the taste and more on the pure, filthy intimacy of it. Harry reached for Draco’s cock and after just a few tugs he was coming again, all over Harry’s hand. Harry smeared it on Draco’s arse, kneading it as they kissed. That probably should have bothered him, but then again, they were already in the shower.

Harry soaped up his arse again and cleaned up what had gotten on their faces during all the messy kissing. Draco hadn’t been thinking about it—there had been far more interesting things to think about—but he really needed to brush his teeth. He was pretty sure his morning breath smelled and tasted terrible, and now the come mixed in was making it all the more necessary. When they were out of the shower and Harry had handed him a towel, Draco asked, “Do you have a spare toothbrush or anything?”

He did. He handed it to Draco and took out his own, and they brushed their teeth side by side. Draco watched Harry in the mirror. He was so hot that even _brushing his teeth_ looked sexy. That or Draco was already worryingly far gone.

Clean mouths seemed to be a good reason to snog some more, so they did a lot of that. A _lot_ of that. Draco thought kissing would have to get old at some point—after all, there was only so much that two mouths could do—but he felt as if he could happily kiss Harry for hours. Harry put trousers on, but the kissing got in the way of any more dressing.

Harry was again working on his neck when, once more, Ron Weasley entered without preamble.

“Kingsley expects you in a half hour, Harry, so we should—bloody hell! Didn’t you get enough last night?”

“There is no such thing as enough,” Harry said, smirking, once he’d separated from Draco’s throat.

“Put your clothes on,” Weasley said, more to Draco than to Harry despite Harry’s nearly equivalent state of undress.

Draco was at a loss, though, when it came to putting his clothes on. He had left his robes at Astoria’s last night; he could only hope she would bring them for him. Even so, he couldn’t very well come in his Muggle slut outfit. He stared at the t-shirt and jeans and considered his options. He could fix the colour and perhaps loosen the fit, but he couldn’t make them anything but a t-shirt and jeans. Fuck, he hadn’t even worn pants. He sighed and got started, making the jeans black, so they could nearly pass for proper trousers, and taking them up a size.

“Hurry up, Malfoy,” came Weasley’s voice from the hall as Draco stepped into his newly blackened jeans. “I’m not going to be late because of you.”

“You don’t have to wait, Ron,” Harry pointed out.

“What, so I should leave you two alone to start snogging again? Not likely.”

Harry laughed, close behind Draco. Draco was glaring at his t-shirt in frustration. There was no getting around it—it was a t-shirt. Tailoring charms couldn’t fix that, and transfiguration risked all sorts of cut and fit issues, none of which he’d have time to resolve, not with Weasley’s vocal impatience.

“Here,” Harry said, and pressed a dark button-up shirt to Draco’s chest. “This should fit.”

Harry was lending him a shirt. He was going to wear Harry’s shirt. He felt like a teenage girl. Once, Pansy had borrowed one of his jumpers and paraded around for a whole week as though it were some sort of badge of honour. Draco hadn’t understood then, but he thought he sort of understood now.

He pulled his t-shirt on and buttoned Harry’s shirt over it, embarrassed at the excitement this gave him. No one would recognise this as Harry’s shirt, but it still felt like a public announcement that they’d slept together. That Harry had kissed and licked him _everywhere_.

When he turned around and saw Harry, he nearly gasped aloud. Harry wore elegant, dark blue robes, free of adornment but _perfectly_ fitted and clearly expensive. He looked both untouchably perfect—the Harry Potter of newspapers and public appearances—and very, _very_ touchable; if Weasley hadn’t been waiting, Draco would have been tempted to touch him all over.

“Ready to Floo?” Weasley asked from the hall.

“Nearly,” Harry said, and tugged his boots on, reminding Draco to put on his own. He gave Draco an odd look, then drew out his wand and traced a line down the side of Draco’s neck. He felt the subtle magic, and Harry said, “Just a glamour.” He then cast one over himself as well, with practised precision—the dark circles under his eyes disappeared, as did the small marks Draco had left at the base of his throat.

Draco hadn’t really considered that _this_ Harry and the humbly heroic man he’d witnessed for years from a distance were one and the same. He _knew_ who Harry was, of course, but he still couldn’t reconcile the two personas. Even after Draco’s initial shock the night before at seeing Harry with some Muggle out of nowhere, he hadn’t fully connected the Harry who fucked him to Harry Potter, hero of the Wizarding world. Now, they were about to leave for the Ministry of Magic, to step out into the public eye, and Harry was becoming Harry Potter again. Harry Potter had always seemed like more of a myth than a person to Draco, ever since the war ended and the person vanished, leaving only the public figure. Harry was never seen at pubs or shops or out with his friends. As far as anyone could tell, he didn’t even exist outside of newspapers, meetings, and high-profile events. But last night, Draco had found out that Harry _did_ exist, that he really was a human and not a mythical hero.

The Ministry was the only place he’d seen Harry at all since the summer after the war. He’d seen him in the halls, walking in step with various higher-ups, to and from meetings discussing Important Social Policies. He’d seen him at commemorative events and charity balls, posing for photographers and making obligatory speeches. But Draco had never imagined that he did these things after having sex all night while fucked up on Muggle drugs. He’d never pictured the transition he now saw, as Harry went from surly and exhausted to bright and smiling, straightening and raising his chin. Weasley didn’t seem to even notice. Was this what always happened? Was Harry always sleep-deprived and freshly fucked under his carefully presented exterior? Even seeing it firsthand, Draco found it hard to believe.

They Flooed right into the Atrium at the Ministry, directly into the mess of people walking every which way, flooding out of the fireplaces and towards the lifts. Draco was used to this taking up to twenty minutes, as people shoved past him in the lift queue and generally behaved as though he weren’t there. With Harry present, it was the exact opposite; the crowd parted to let them through, with mixed looks of adoration, fear, and awe. Draco had never made it to the lifts so quickly at this hour, or been in one so empty—no one stepped in after Harry and Weasley entered, and the two witches already there shrank back, seemingly unsure of whether sharing the lift with Harry Potter or shoving past him to exit would be more offensive.

Weasley rolled his eyes slightly at their deference, but Harry seemed not to notice their presence at all. He stared forward with a blank expression, shoulders back and chin tilted up just slightly—the perfect picture of polished celebrity. The two witches got off at level six, practically pressing themselves flat against the walls to get out without brushing against Harry.

“Are you going to level one?” Draco asked.

Harry nodded. The lift doors opened; the wizard waiting stepped back when he saw Harry instead of entering.

“When can I see you again?” Draco sounded eager, too eager, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“You can see me right now,” Harry responded, amused.

“No, but _later_. Where will you be tonight?” For a second, he envisioned joining Harry at the Burrow for dinner with the Weasleys. And his son.

“Who knows where I’ll be tonight?”

Weasley scoffed; his disdain could have been aimed at Harry’s lifestyle just as easily as for Draco’s eagerness.

“Well, can I see you?”

“Level two,” Harry said pointedly, and it took Draco a moment to realise he meant they’d hit Draco’s floor. Weasley was already shoving past him on his way out.

“Noon?” he asked, through Draco, and Harry nodded.

“Harry?” Draco asked, not caring if he sounded desperate.

“I'll see you in your dreams.”

He said it kindly, so softly and gently that it sounded more like a promise than the brush-off it was. Even while he was rejecting Draco, he was looking at him directly, more personally than Draco could remember anyone looking at him in a long time.

The lift doors closed between them.

“Thank Merlin that’s over,” Weasley muttered to himself. Then to Draco he added, “Hope you have your shit together by half past.” Today Weasley and his partner Adler would be reviewing practical stealth with the trainees until lunch. “And get your robes on.” He said this while looking a ways down the hall; Draco turned and saw Astoria, dressed in her purple trainee robes and holding Draco’s bundled in her arms. She was watching the pair of them with unconcealed curiosity.

Weasley walked right past her with a polite nod. She watched him until he turned the corner, then swung to face Draco.

“You never came back last night! Your mother Flooed and I didn’t know what to tell her so I said you were asleep.”

“Sorry,” Draco said, but he couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

Astoria’s eyes narrowed. “What were you doing? I thought you’d show up in the morning at least.” Something must have shown in Draco’s expression because Astoria leaned in and whispered, “You weren’t with _Weasley_ , were you?”

He laughed aloud, which seemed to satisfy her as a negative response. “How much time do we have?”

She checked her watch. “Six minutes to nine.”

“I’ll tell you over lunch,” he promised.

“It was a wizard, though, wasn’t it? Not some Muggle stranger—someone you knew.”

Draco nodded. “Lunch.”

“But _who_?” Astoria prodded as they started down the hall.

He caught her by the shoulder, stopping her before they rounded the corner, and turned her to face him. _Harry Potter_ , he mouthed. Her jaw dropped, and she stood frozen as he continued in towards the Auror offices, a spring in his step.

—

As it turned out, they didn’t have to wait until lunch. Weasley and Adler had them practise concealment and privacy charms, which Astoria considered her specialty. She and Draco paired up, as they did every time pairs were chosen and not assigned, and the second she had their position hidden and a solid one-way sound barrier in place, she turned on him and began interrogating.

“Harry Potter? You did not go home with _Harry Potter_ last night. You are a fucking liar, Draco Malfoy.”

“Do you really want Weasley and Adler overhearing this?”

“Don’t be absurd. They can’t get through my spells,” Astoria snapped. Perhaps arrogant, but Draco knew she had the skill to support her confidence. “Tell me what happened.”

He couldn’t very well refuse Astoria while her wand was out. So he told her about going to the club and running into Harry before even stepping inside, about Harry’s apparent lifestyle of Muggle drugs and Muggle sex, about having sex with him twice over the course of the night and again in the morning. He even told her about James, and going to the Weasleys’ home and talking to Granger, though while he was saying all of that he realised this part of the story probably wasn’t of particular interest for her. Despite her repeated exclamations of surprise throughout, she seemed to believe him.

“So what was it like?” she asked.

“We only got there when it was over, so I’m not—”

“Not _Ginny Weasley’s childbirth_ , you berk. The _sex_. How was the sex?”

Astoria had been almost as excited about Draco finally having sex as Draco himself. When Draco, half-drunk, brought up the idea of going out and getting fucked, he hadn’t even been fully serious about it, but Astoria’s encouragement committed him to the plan. A part of him now felt that the experience had been his and Harry’s alone, and it should stay that way, but he also thought she deserved to have some vicarious anal sex. Plus, he couldn’t help wanting to brag a little.

“It was amazing.”

“Did it hurt?”

“Some, at first, but I told him to go slower and he did. It was…it was amazing. Like I was the only thing in his entire world. He said he wants me to think of him, no matter who else I ever have sex with.”

Astoria looked pensive. “Do you think he’d wanted it for a while? I mean, you don’t just take your boyhood enemy home out of nowhere.”

“He said he had. He said he’d always wanted it.”

“Did you? You’ve never talked about him like that before. You’ve never really talked about him at all.”

“I always thought he was fit at Hogwarts. But then Harry Potter, the celebrity, has never seemed particularly sexy to me. Too…manufactured. I don’t know. But the man, the real Harry, well, now I can’t imagine _not_ wanting him.”

“You sound like such a twat,” Astoria said. Draco was glad she was still being nasty to him. She checked her watch. “We should get back.”

When they re-joined the group, it was clear the others had been waiting a while. Normally Draco was careful to always be on time, a model trainee, but he knew Weasley had only given them this practice time to get them all out of his hair for a bit. The Aurors took turns working with the trainees, and almost all of them seemed to dread it, Weasley included. There were only eight trainees at the moment, but this was still more than anyone wanted to deal with at once. He was much more agreeable when it came to working with them one-on-one; on such occasions, he was friendly even to Draco. But with group work, he always gave off a clear attitude of, ‘This is not why I became an Auror and this is not what I’m paid for, so I don’t have to deal with it if I don’t want to.’

While Weasley sat back with his arms crossed, Adler was giving some of the other pairs pointers; it seemed some had been less successful in their concealment. Draco couldn’t understand how some of them had made it this far without ironing out these kinks. Some of Adler’s tips were things Draco had heard two years ago, in basic training. But everyone had different strengths, of course. Jimmy Peakes, who was currently mimicking Adler’s wand movement, had an immense amount of power behind his spellcasting, but lacked the precision for subtler spells. A formidable duelling opponent, but pants at stealth.

Astoria, like Draco, found her strength on the precise end of the scale. She and Draco were each the only member of their houses in the current batch of Gryffindor and Hufflepuff trainees. She had been in Ravenclaw, three years under him. He’d only known her as Daphne Greengrass’s younger sister. Daphne had been in Slytherin with him, in his year, and had been close with Pansy all through school. She’d owled him when news of his acceptance spread amongst their former classmates, saying her younger sister would be starting training with him and would he mind looking out for her? As it turned out, she’d also instructed Astoria to look after Draco. They continued to argue over which of them Daphne had really been concerned about, but either way, they’d each found a friend and ally who would be with them through the process.

It wasn’t as if either of them really needed _protection_. Astoria was pretty and petite and generally perceived as delicate, but she could more than fend for herself. Draco could fend for himself, too, even when—

“Move it,” Peakes said under his breath as he shoved past Draco. Weasley and Adler had let them out for lunch. “Out of the way, Death Eater.”

Even when he had pricks like this to deal with. Though ‘fend for himself’ was perhaps not the best description for keeping his head down and his complaints quiet. This was the sort of thing Granger was looking for, every time she met him for coffee. She was a justice-seeker, a champion of fairness. He could be her next cause. Or he could just get through this without making it worse or drawing any more negative attention to himself.

He stepped to the side, giving Peakes a wide berth. Astoria pursed her lips but kept quiet. Once everyone else had passed, they walked to lunch like nothing had happened.

—

When Draco left the Ministry at the end of the day, he Apparated directly to his room in Malfoy Manor. He had lived at the Manor for twenty-three years, but it had been seven since he had stopped thinking of it as home.

When Lord Voldemort took over the Manor, Draco no longer thought of it as the place where he grew up, but as the catalyst for his adulthood—a forced coming of age, borne not of rising to challenges and growing, victorious, into manhood, but of a necessary abandonment of childhood, stepping out from safety into a void. He didn’t blame his parents for the actions they took then. He never blamed his parents for any of it. They did what they could with what they knew, and they did what they could to protect their family. He never doubted that they loved him.

He still didn’t blame them for what they did during the war, or before. He blamed them for what they did _after_. He blamed his father for trying to plead Imperiused a second time, for digging himself a hole so deep that only Harry Potter’s ( _Harry’s_ ) testimony—given for Draco and Narcissa’s sake, not for Lucius—could keep him from Azkaban and give him a lighter house arrest sentence, for then resenting Draco and Narcissa for their freedom. He blamed his mother for her reticence, for her submission to Lucius even in his state of weakness, for her inexplicable loyalty to her old way of life despite all of the consequences it had already dealt.

Both of his parents nudged him toward a life of “respectability.” They supported his choice to return to Hogwarts and finish his schooling, agreeing that this would open doors otherwise closed to him. But upon graduation, they expected him to find a quiet, relatively high-paying position (using what few connections the Malfoy family still retained), make enough money to sustain their upper-class lifestyle, and marry a nice pureblood girl from the right side of the war. The right career would support the family, and the right marriage would restore some amount of social ranking.

But they overestimated the Wizarding world’s ability to forget the past. No one wanted to hire a Death Eater. Other children of Death Eaters got a pass; Theodore Nott, for example, was now a Healer at St. Mungo’s. He was not blamed for anything his father had done in service of the Dark Lord. Nott, Sr. was in Azkaban and that was enough. But Draco, unlike Theodore Nott, had been marked himself. _He_ was culpable. _He_ would not be hired.

More importantly, Draco’s parents overestimated his willingness to go through the motions in the name of social propriety. He would not suffer through a monotonous office job under some ancient pureblood wizard who owed his father a favour. He would not marry Astoria and produce little pureblood babies. Maybe if the war hadn’t happened, if the path he’d been raised to follow had seemed his only option, he might have continued on it. But with his family knocked to the bottom of the social heap, he felt he’d been given a clean slate. A fresh start. He could reconstruct himself however he wished, raise himself in public esteem however _he_ saw fit. It wasn’t up to his father, with his Wizengamot-enforced house arrest sentence, or his mother, with her self-imposed one. He was his own man, and he could make his own path.

So when he graduated and was first rejected from the Auror program, he didn’t turn to networking and trying to finagle a job from one of his father’s old pals who wasn’t imprisoned. He took the jobs he could get on his own merit, and when it turned out that those jobs were few and short-lived, he ventured into the Muggle world, where no one knew him and he could win over employers without his reputation getting in his way. He waited tables and flirted with customers and made an incredible amount of money, far more than he’d ever managed with his menial jobs in the magical world. He stopped telling his parents about his life and focused on living it.

Then Granger found out about his repeated rejections from Auror training. Then Arthur Weasley defended him to the Minister and Head Auror. Then his father stopped speaking to him. Then his mother began giving him sad looks and dropping sideways hints about repairing his relationship with his father.

He ate as few meals at home as he could manage and generally restricted his presence at home to his bedroom. This worked well for steering clear of Lucius, who was content to pretend Draco didn’t live there at all.

“Draco, is that you?”

His mother, on the other hand, was not so easy to avoid.

“Yes, Mother, I’m here,” he called through his bedroom door.

There was a time when Narcissa respected Draco’s personal space. For the most of the year and a half that Draco worked in the Muggle world, Narcissa let him have his privacy. But when he started training, she stopped letting him avoid her.

Now, she stepped right into the room without asking.

“Where were you last night?”

“With Astoria Greengrass,” he replied shortly. “I told you.”

“You didn’t come home.”

“No, I kipped on her sofa.”

His mother was quiet for a moment. Then: “Dinner is in a half hour.”

He missed when he’d work from five at night to one in the morning and only see his parents briefly between waking up in the early afternoon and leaving for work again, if at all. It had been easier to avoid mealtimes then.

“I’m going out,” he said vaguely, walking to his wardrobe. He hadn’t been planning on it, but now it seemed the obvious choice. He could go to the club again, maybe. Or just go directly to Harry’s.

He started changing, turning his back to his mother. He heard her small hum of disapproval when he dropped his jeans to reveal that he wasn’t wearing anything under them, but she didn’t say anything, so he continued to ignore her. He’d wear proper black trousers, not these barely adequately edited jeans. He considered Harry’s shirt as he unbuttoned it. Returning it would be the polite thing to do, but…he didn’t care about being polite. He’d keep it for now, and Harry could have it back eventually. Maybe. For tonight, he’d wear a tight, sleeveless t-shirt—in case he went to the club—and a thin jumper for modesty’s sake, and his mother’s.

“Where are you going?” Narcissa asked at last.

“Astoria’s.”

“You were just there.”

“Well, I’m going again.”

She stepped in front of him as he moved for the door. “Draco.” He gave in and stopped avoiding her eyes. “Floo and let me know if you won’t be home?”

He shrugged noncommittally. She sighed and leaned in to kiss his cheek. “Please, Draco.”

If he’d been able to save up more money from his jobs before starting training, he’d already have moved out. But as it was, he knew that he couldn’t make it through the three incomeless years of training while paying his own rent. Once he finished training, he’d get a flat, and he’d be done with this.

He sighed, and kissed her cheek in turn. “Goodbye, Mother.”

—

Draco didn’t have a plan, so he Flooed to the Leaky Cauldron. From there, he could easily get to Muggle London. Or Floo to Astoria’s if he changed his mind. There were a few good Muggle restaurants he knew within walking distance, places he could eat alone without sideways glances and heckles from the other patrons.

But when he stepped out of the fireplace, Weasley was there. Weasley was _everywhere_. It would have to stop. Instead of reminding him of the Ministry, Weasley’s unexpected presence now reminded him of being in Harry’s bedroom, which wouldn’t do at all.

He was with one of his brothers—George Weasley, the one with the joke shop. Weasley barely acknowledged Draco as the pair walked to the bar, but George Weasley grinned wickedly and called, “Oi, Malfoy!”

Draco had never been sure how to act with the Weasleys. He knew where he stood with some of them—to Arthur, he was a misguided boy trying to set things right; to Molly, he was a lost soul who needed love and guidance; to Weasley, he was an annoying but harmless irritant. He could almost navigate interactions with them. George Weasley, on the other hand, was an unknown quantity.

“Had a good night, then?” he asked, once Draco had completed his hesitant approach.

Draco couldn’t tell whether George Weasley was taking the piss or being friendly. “It was all right,” he said diplomatically.

Weasley rolled his eyes and turned to Hannah Abbott, who stood behind the bar. His brother could talk to Draco, but he would have no part in it.

“Bill thought you’d run to the press, but Dad said you wouldn’t.”

He wasn’t sure which event George Weasley was suggesting he’d tell the press about—Harry Potter having (utterly phenomenal) gay sex with a former Death Eater, or Ginny Weasley having Harry Potter’s baby. The former was more scandalous, but the latter had clearly been intentionally kept secret. He wondered how often the Weasleys discussed Harry’s sex life.

“He won’t talk to the press,” Weasley said, turning back to his brother and abandoning all pretence of ignoring Draco. “He’s keeping his head down.” He sounded quite confident of this.

Draco suddenly felt quite certain that Granger had relayed some of their conversations to Weasley. It didn’t matter—they weren’t friends—but he couldn’t help feeling slightly betrayed.

“Still, big news,” George Weasley continued, faux-casual. “Would definitely sell papers.”

“I’m not telling anyone,” Draco said firmly.

“Because you like him?” George Weasley prodded.

Draco still wasn’t sure which piece of news he was supposedly bringing to the press. But regardless: “Yes, I do.”

George Weasley laughed, and Draco still couldn’t tell if he was being kind or mocking.

Weasley gave Draco a hard look, seeming both concerned and unfeeling at once. “He’s not your boyfriend, Malfoy. He doesn’t do boyfriends.”

It was like the night before, when Granger warned him off, but it felt different this time. Not because Weasley’s motivations were different to Granger’s, though that was certainly true; he definitely cared more about Harry’s well-being than Draco’s. No, it felt different because Draco felt different. Last night, he believed Granger. Harry only wanted sex, and it didn’t matter because Draco only wanted sex, too. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Bodies didn’t lie.

“You don't know that,” Draco said, and his voice shook slightly, but he held his head high and didn’t let his gaze waver.

“I know this: he is a selfish prick who doesn't care about anyone but himself.” Weasley sounded absolutely certain of this, and Draco couldn’t understand how anyone’s best friend could judge him so harshly.

“Ron,” George Weasley started, sounding surprised, but he didn’t say anything else. Hannah Abbot stared at the three of them. Draco was pretty sure she didn’t know they were talking about Harry, but he felt awkward having her audience all the same.

“Thank you for the advice,” Draco said, and went to the men’s toilet.

There wasn’t anyone in any of the stalls, and he locked the door to keep it that way. He was breathing hard and shaking slightly. Weasley’s words should not have affected him this much. He hadn’t said anything Draco hadn’t already known. Harry did seem to be an unfeeling bastard—what sort of father left his newborn son to go have sex? He was apparently such a prick that even his best friends, despite their loyalty, had no illusions about him. Draco had asked about seeing him again and Harry had brushed him off entirely, which should have told Draco all he needed to know.

But Harry was the only reason Draco had ever had the opportunity for a fresh start. The Wizengamot had been ready to throw Draco in Azkaban—a new, Dementor-free Azkaban, but prison all the same—until Harry convinced them he was just a kid thrown into a situation he couldn’t control. As Harry told it, Draco was unable to kill Dumbledore because was simply _not a killer_ ; he performed Unforgivables only under threat to his own life and his parents’; he refused to hand Harry to Voldemort when given the opportunity. When his supposed friends and allies Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle tried to overpower Harry and his friends, Draco desperately insisted they not kill him. Harry saw him more positively than Draco had ever seen himself.

And now he’d been _inside_ Draco, kissed him in all sorts of intimate places. He’d said he always wanted to be with him like that. He _saw_ Draco, in a way no one seemed to anymore.

Draco stared at himself in the grimy mirror above the sink. He looked different even to himself, now. It wasn’t anything tangible; nothing had physically changed. But this was now a body Harry had wanted. When he looked at his own face, he saw a mouth Harry had kissed, and that made all the difference.

He thought of the marks Harry had left all over him, hidden beneath the concealment charm. He thought of Harry’s face close above his own as he pressed inside. He thought of Harry’s voice, soft and kind.

He closed his eyes, pictured the grand foyer in Harry’s home, and Apparated.

—

It felt wrong from the moment Draco lurched into place just inside the front door. There wasn’t anything visibly off, but Draco felt sick to his stomach, and not from the disorienting feeling of Apparition. There were faint sounds drifting from somewhere upstairs, quiet but comparatively loud in the huge, empty house.

“Harry?” he called up the stairs. “Harry, can I speak with you?”

He could tell what the sounds are, could remember closing his eyes and listening to them, and everything that went with them. He knew what was happening, even before Harry appeared on the next landing. He’d changed back into Muggle clothes from his dark blue robes, and his eyes had their manic energy restored. And his mouth was kiss-swollen, his shirt rumpled, his jeans tented.

“You can’t just drop by unannounced,” Harry said, far more politely than Draco would have expected, given what he was clearly interrupting.

“I just wanted to talk,” he said, feigning bravado.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” If Harry wanted Draco to believe that, he should have walked away. He should have told Draco to leave. He should have stopped looking down the stairs at him with an inscrutable but intense expression. But he stood where he was, and Draco stayed where he was, staring up at Harry. Neither moved—not even when a third man appeared behind Harry on the landing.

The man’s brows knit together as he looked at Draco, and he turned to Harry as if waiting for an explanation, but Harry didn’t so much as glance at him. “Who’s this?” the man finally prompted.

“No one,” Harry said, still inscrutable.

The man seemed to appraise Draco, a head-to-toe once-over. “You could have just said you wanted a threesome, Steve. He’s fit.”

“He’s leaving.” Harry sounded firmer this time.

The man wasn’t fit at all. He seemed to be in decent shape, but he was older, with thinning hair, and his face was completely forgettable. And he thought Harry’s name was Steve.

“Who is he?” Draco asked. The man smirked, apparently now expecting that threesome.

Harry thought for a second. “Paul.”

“Pete,” the man corrected.

“Pete. Right.”

Draco felt sick. “You don’t even know him.”

“Well,” Harry started, smirking, “I was hoping to get to.”

Draco imagined having a threesome, just for a moment. He imagined telling Pete to fuck off and kissing Harry hard and fucking roughly right there on the stairs. He imagined crying to Harry and letting spill everything he wouldn’t tell Granger about training, or Astoria about home. He imagined getting to his knees and sucking Harry off and letting Harry use his body however he wanted. He imagined calling Harry out for being such an unfeeling bastard, for treating his friends and (surrogate) family and sex partners and _son_ so callously. He imagined finding his own random strangers and parading them in front of Harry and seeing how he liked it. He imagined Harry falling in love with him. He imagined turning around and leaving and not looking back.

It wasn’t his choice to make. He felt certain that Harry wanted him, but if Harry wanted to pretend he didn’t and fuck ugly strangers, well, he had every right. Draco turned and walked back to the door. Instead of Apparating, he went through it and closed it behind him. He had to move. He had to do something, anything that had the slightest chance of getting his mind away from what-ifs.

He hadn’t seen Harry’s neighbourhood the night before, given that they’d arrived by Apparition and left by Floo both times. Now as he stepped out onto the street for the first time, he realised he had no idea where he was. He didn’t even know whether Harry lived in London, though it looked like he probably did. Maybe he’d walk a bit, look for an Underground station, and find a place to Apparate if necessary.

He wanted to turn around, but he needed it to be because Harry gave him a reason to.

But he didn’t think he _would_.

He heard the heavy creak of the door opening behind him, and he found himself walking faster. It was his imagination. It was one of Harry’s neighbours. It wasn’t a door at all, merely someone somewhere inside pushing back a chair.

“I just left a complete stranger alone in my house to come and talk to you, so don’t run away from me.”

Harry’s voice. Harry coming after him, coming to talk to him instead of fucking that _Pete_ man.

“He isn’t even attractive,” Draco said, turning. “You don’t even know him. He thinks your name is Steve.”

“I told him it was.”

“You’ll fuck anyone. You’ll fuck _anyone_ , and I really like—”

“Malfoy, I’ve had you.”

Draco believed it this time, that Harry didn’t care about him. He looked like he meant it, all unfeeling eyes and set posture.

“Last night,” Harry continued, “you wanted me, and I wanted you. That’s all it was.”

“A fuck?” It wasn’t true. As Draco thought back to everything that had passed between them, _just a fuck_ didn’t fit at all.

“What did you think it was?”

Harry had _looked_ at him, and really seen him. He’d spoken to Draco as just a person, not as a former Death Eater, failure, embarrassment, wannabe criminal. With Harry, he was simply Draco.

“Look,” Harry started, “fucking is honest. It’s efficient. You get in and out with a maximum of pleasure and a minimum of bullshit. _Love_ is the dream home, a pretty wife and two children and a respectable job. I could have that. I could marry Gin and settle down and take Kingsley up on his offer. I don’t want that. I don’t want any of that. _You_ can be an Auror and marry a nice pureblood girl—”

“I don’t want that either,” Draco interjected. “I want you.”

“You can’t have me. If I don’t want it with Gin, why the fuck would I want it with you?”

It was the first time Harry had spoken to him like he was _less_.

Harry’s friends talked as though he were some kind of lost cause, his acceptance based on duty but not on merit. They loved him because he was Harry and they had to. Draco didn’t have to. Draco didn’t have to be a part of this at all. He had been doing just fine for himself, and he could continue on the same way.

“I hope Steve enjoys his time with Paul,” Draco said. His voice didn’t shake.

He turned and walked down the street, past rows of homes from which the sounds of _life_ and _love_ and _family_ escaped. He didn’t hear Harry go back inside, didn’t hear the door shut behind him. As he walked, he could increasingly only hear the blood rushing in his ears. His heart pounded wildly in his chest, and he had to blink to clear his eyes and focus on the street before him.

He walked for nearly a half hour, trying to empty his mind. Then, looking around and finding himself alone, he Apparated to the alleyway he remembered near the club. He went in and he danced and he sucked off a stranger, and he didn’t think about Harry Potter at all.


	2. Coming or Going

Losing his virginity doesn’t change Draco’s life. The other Auror trainees still mock and avoid him. His mother still worries. His father still gives him judgmental looks instead of speaking to him. He still goes for drinks with Astoria, and to lunch, and spends nights on her sofa. He sees Weasley every day. He sees Granger when she comes in to see Weasley, and he goes through the motions of their coffee routine.

And he sees Harry at the Muggle club, which he now frequents. The first time, Harry is dancing with someone else when Draco gets there. Draco dances close and makes eyes at Harry’s partner, and soon enough the man decides that Draco is a more tempting prospect. Harry doesn’t like this; he takes Draco to the loo and fucks him hard from behind, standing in a cramped stall. Draco thinks that’s the end of it, but Harry takes him home and blows him, and after Draco returns the favour, Harry passes out. Draco Floos to Astoria’s and sleeps on her sofa and tries to make sense of what happened.

The second time, two weeks later, Harry comes up next to him at the bar and gropes him without ceremony. “We’re leaving,” he says low in Draco’s ear. A man has just bought Draco a drink, and he glares at Harry, but it seems half-hearted; he understands that no one could get an offer from Harry and _not_ take it. Harry’s stairway seems exceedingly long, and they only make it to the first floor, fucking on a couch in some neglected sitting room. Afterwards, Harry is very quiet, and Draco follows his lead, leaving without a word.

The third time is almost three weeks after the second. Harry dances with him and they snog right there on the dance floor, pressed against each other and moving to their own rhythm. When they get back to Harry’s room, Harry doesn’t seem to want to stop kissing him, not for a second. He falls asleep curled around Draco, who extricates himself and goes home.

It still doesn’t mean anything.

Most of the time, Draco has sex with complete strangers, and each time he thinks it should feel much more novel and much less commonplace than it does.

—

When he sees Granger and Ginny Weasley out in Diagon Alley on a Saturday afternoon, it has been just over two months since Harry first took him home and fucked him and didn’t change his life. He is with Astoria, having just accompanied her to Twilfit and Tatting’s to select a gift for her sister’s birthday. She is telling him a story about her mother’s recent botched hair colouring, and he is laughing in the appropriate places. When he catches sight of Granger and Ginny Weasley, he loses track of Astoria’s tale because Ginny Weasley is holding James, and now Draco can’t think of anything but Harry’s intent look, Harry touching him everywhere, Harry’s mouth on his.

He knows it’s nothing. He _knows_ , but sometimes he forgets for a moment.

Granger sees him, smiles, and waves, and Draco thinks that will be the end of it. But Ginny Weasley sees him too. She smiles too. She waves too. And the pair of women walk over, looking at Draco like he’s an old friend and not someone who was probably snogging that baby’s father at the time of birth.

Astoria has stopped talking about her mother’s hair. She’s staring at them as they approach, wide-eyed, and Draco realises she’s ogling James.

“Is that the baby?” Astoria asks, whispering even though the women are still well out of hearing distance and can see her staring anyway.

Ginny Weasley has been seen out with James twice so far, and he remains a source of intrigue for the public. Despite unforgiving gossip and prodding from the press, she has refused to comment on the identity of the child’s father, or even to confirm that she is his mother. New rumours arose that it was, in fact, Granger and Weasley’s baby (it didn’t seem to matter that Granger clearly had not been pregnant at all in the past year), or the bastard child of one of her other brothers. In the hall last week, Draco passed two witches who suspected the baby was in fact the offspring of Ginny _and_ one of her brothers, and Draco had to fight not to hex them. He understands the desire for privacy, but he isn’t convinced that not acknowledging the gossip was a better defence than publicly refuting it with a small statement to set the facts straight.

Draco isn’t sure how many people know. Aside from the Weasleys themselves, the number could probably be counted on one hand. He’s impressed with Astoria for keeping it to herself; he’d been sure she’d at least let it slip to her sister, but unless Daphne has suddenly grasped the concept of ‘secret’, Astoria has kept quiet.

She stays quiet now, as Granger and Ginny Weasley weave around other shoppers to get to where Draco and Astoria stand, awkwardly unmoving. He forgets sometimes that Astoria is nearly as much of an outsider as he is. She’s never had the social aptitude for real friendships outside of her sister and, since training began, Draco. He feels the sudden and unfamiliar urge to protect her somehow, even though Granger and Ginny Weasley pose no threat.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” Ginny Weasley says with a wide smile, and Draco doesn’t know what to say. Not because she’s being unfriendly, as he expected, but because she _is_ being friendly, even though the last time she saw him he had sex with her ex. (And several times since, though Draco isn’t sure whether she knows about that.) She seems entirely genuine, and he truly has no idea what to say. Granger seems to recognise his hesitance; she doesn’t say anything either.

But Astoria does, to Draco’s surprise. “He’s beautiful. What’s his name?”

“Jamie,” Ginny Weasley says proudly.

“He looks just like you,” Astoria tells her, to which she smiles enigmatically.

“Are you two shopping?” Granger asks. Draco wonders if she’s trying to stop the conversation heading towards Jamie’s mysterious parentage. It’s far too obvious a question for her usual standards.

Astoria gestures toward her shopping bag. “It’s my sister’s birthday on Tuesday.”

“Oh, your sister! Is she well?”

No one points out that Granger and Daphne were never on civil terms in school. “Yes, she’s doing very well. She and Theodore Nott are recently engaged.”

“That’s wonderful! Please do give her my congratulations.”

It sounds so _forced_ to Draco, but Granger and Astoria are smiling as though nothing is amiss. He begins to wonder if he can read any of these women at all, or if perhaps everything he thinks he knows about them is all in his head.

“I don’t think we’ve met before,” Ginny Weasley says, shifting James in her arms so she can hold her hand out to Astoria. “I’m Ginny Weasley.”

“I know,” Astoria says, her slight flush the first betrayal of her lack of confidence. “The Harpies are my favourite team. We all missed you this season, Miss Weasley.”

“Oh, please, call me Ginny,” Ginny says warmly, and Draco is so stunned at how surreal the situation is that he forgets how to move or speak altogether.

This, of course, is when a bright flash and puff of smoke calls their attention to a photographer standing ten feet away. He waves, smiles, and Disapparates. Draco wants to follow suit; he’s been able to ignore the staring from surrounding passers-by so far, but now it’s undeniable.

“I’m so sorry about that,” Ginny says, seeming truly apologetic.

Granger shakes her head in annoyance. “They can’t seem to leave Ginny alone lately.”

“Or ever,” Ginny mutters.

“That’s normal?” Astoria asks.

Ginny nods. “There will be something in the Prophet tomorrow.”

“As if lunch and errands are newsworthy,” Granger says scathingly.

“I’m sorry,” says Draco. “I’m sure you weren’t intending to be photographed with me.”

Granger gives him an odd look. “Why should that matter? People know that we’re friends.”

Friends?

 _Friends_.

Well.

Shouldn’t _he_ have known about that before other people found out?

Astoria is visibly surprised. Draco has always described his meetings with Granger as stilted and obligatory, not as _coffee with a friend_. Ginny, on the other hand, is still smiling in that bright, unaffected way, and Draco realises that Granger has been telling her friends that they’re friends.

“Right,” he says, hoping his confusion hasn’t shown on his face. “Of course.”

“Where were you two headed?” Ginny asks. “We’re on our way to my brother’s shop, and you’re welcome to some joke products, on the house.”

“I have to be home soon, actually,” Astoria answers. “But thank you.”

“And you, Draco?” Granger prompts.

He looks to Astoria, who nods just slightly.

“I’d love to,” he tries. Even as he says it, he isn’t sure whether it’s true.

They say their goodbyes to Astoria (Ginny even says it was lovely to meet her, and Draco would hate her for being so fake if only she didn’t sound like she really meant it) and head up the street toward Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes.

He doesn’t expect Ginny and her brother to _actually_ give him free joke products, but they do—a whole bag full of devices, like Extendable Ears and Instant Darkness Powder. Granger excitedly points out their usefulness for stealth, surveillance, and other Auror duties, which makes Draco feel uncomfortably warm. _We’re friends_ , she said, like it was obvious. And when they continue on with the rest of their errands (stops at a couple of bookshops, the apothecary, a tailor, and a cafe so Ginny can have a sandwich), not once is there any question of whether Draco is welcome to join them.

They talk the entire afternoon, about Granger’s work and Draco’s training and Ginny’s upcoming Quidditch season, for which practice will start in a couple of months. Gone is the sense of obligation that Draco has always felt when talking to Granger—his obligation to be polite, to convince her he’s doing fine, to keep her from trying to stand up for him. The feeling that she is only talking to him as an obligation is gone as well. Instead, she seems to be genuinely interested in his life, and Ginny appears just as sincere. Draco wonders how long he’s been missing this—and whether he’s been doing so on purpose, even unconsciously.

It feels natural to go back to the Burrow with them at the end of the day. He’s holding several of their bags, after all, since with Ginny holding James she can’t carry much else. He thinks he’ll just leave the bags, thank them for the afternoon, and Floo home, but Ginny immediately says, “You’ll be staying for dinner, of course.”

“That is, unless you have plans,” Granger amends.

“No,” Draco says, thinking of a silent dinner at the Manor with his parents. “I don’t have plans.”

“Oh, good. You know, Dad keeps saying you ought to come for dinner again one of these days,” Ginny tells him. “He’ll love to have you. And Mum always loves having another setting at the table.”

“She doesn’t mind that—” He doesn’t know how to finish the sentence. Despite Granger’s quick spell-work on his hickeys that night, he’s quite sure both senior Weasleys are aware of why he and Harry were together. Molly wants Harry to marry her daughter, and he’s having meaningless sex with people like Draco instead.

“That Harry’s slept with you?”

Draco nods, flushing.

Ginny laughs. “My mum is completely baffled by everything concerning Harry and has been for the past five years. Her method of coping has been total denial. She doesn’t mind because she has not and will not allow herself to process that information at all.”

Draco waffles for a moment, but decides he might as well just go for it. “And you don’t mind?”

Ginny laughs even harder this time. Her eyes start to water and she doesn’t appear to be able to stop long enough to give a proper answer, but Draco supposes this does the job just as well.

Granger rolls her eyes. She’s going through some of the bags, sorting and stacking the books she bought this afternoon. Draco remembers her telling him it has never been serious between Harry and Ginny, and how matter-of-fact she was about all of it. He wants to understand it, but it seems everyone is so accustomed to the way things are that no one can explain _why_ at all.

“Do _you_ mind that he’ll be here?” Ginny asks, when she’s done finding him utterly hilarious.

“He’ll be here?”

“For dinner,” she clarifies. “He’s here almost every night, and during days when he can spare it. Being a part of Jamie’s life, and all that.” She strokes her son’s head fondly, running her fingers through his already thick ginger hair.

“I don’t mind,” he says, even though his whole body has tensed and yes, he seems to mind quite a bit. “He might, though.”

“What Harry minds is irrelevant,” Granger says. “He’s lost the right to mind.”

James starts to cry and Ginny concludes that he’s hungry, so she gets situated in an armchair and rearranges her top to breastfeed. Draco hasn’t ever seen a woman do this and doesn’t know whether it’s polite to look at her or even stay in the room, but Ginny keeps talking to him and Granger as though nothing out of the ordinary is happening, so he tries to do the same.

“I don’t like to be away from him if I can help it,” Ginny tells him, “but being at home all the time has started to make me a bit mad, I think. Mum and Dad are at Bill and Fleur’s, so I had to bring Jamie when we went out today. Anyway, right now he can only make it an hour or two with Mum, and now that he’s a couple months old I feel better about bringing him places. Hopefully by January he’ll be all right with Mum or Harry watching him during the day.”

January, as Ginny has mentioned repeatedly in the past few hours, is when practice for the new season will begin. She seems to be counting down to then like it’s when her life can really start. Draco feels the same way about training ending in June. He just has to get through everything until then.

“I think they’ll be back soon,” Ginny says. “Do you want anything in the meantime? Tea? Juice? I think we have some biscuits—”

“I’m all right,” Draco interrupts. “Thank you.”

“Well, would you like to sit?” Granger asks.

Draco hadn’t realised both women were seated, while he was standing somewhat awkwardly in front of them. He quickly sits beside Granger on the sofa—only to spring up almost instantaneously as Harry steps into the room through the kitchen.

Harry stares.

Draco half expects Ginny to burst out laughing again, as is her way, but the room stays silent until Harry speaks.

“What is he doing here?”

He says it flatly, as though not remotely interested in the answer, which both comforts and bothers Draco. He doesn’t want Harry to be angry or even irritated at his presence. On the other hand, he’d like it if it made any difference to Harry whether he was there or not. Astoria has been insisting that Harry really does like him. She says he wouldn’t keep taking Draco home if he didn’t. He wouldn’t get jealous when he saw Draco with other men if he didn’t want Draco for himself. He wouldn’t kiss Draco nearly as much if he was only in it to get off.

Draco tries not to let Astoria get to him, but she has. She has, or he wouldn’t feel this crushed that Harry isn’t even slightly pleased to see him.

“We can’t ask a friend to dinner?” Granger says fiercely.

At the same time, Draco is also saying, “I’m sorry, where’s your toilet?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer—he remembers it as upstairs somewhere, from the time he came to dinner a couple of years ago, so he starts up the rickety staircase.

“Friend?” he hears Harry repeat below.

He keeps climbing the stairs and soon realises he must have missed it, since he’s already almost to the top, but it’s not as if he really needed the toilet anyway. The door at the top of the stairs is ajar, and he walks right in.

Harry doesn’t want him here. Harry is probably insisting they redact the dinner invitation so that he won’t have to be around Draco tonight. Why would he want to be around Draco with their clothes on, and with other people present?

Draco is for fast, hot fucks in a world where their names mean nothing. Harry would never want to touch him in front of people they both knew, especially not while sober. Only in front of strangers. Only when pissed out of his mind or fucked up on drugs.

Draco realises he’s struggling to breathe and has his eyes screwed shut. He’s leaning back against the door he shut behind him, a barrier between him and the sitting room below. He concentrates on his breathing, working through it until he no longer feels like his lungs can’t hold air. He opens his eyes.

Everything in the room is orange. He blinks, trying to clear his vision, but the colour doesn’t fade. It takes a moment to realise it isn’t simply an orange room, but a room covered in Chudley Cannons memorabilia. From the walls to the bedspread, everything proclaims Cannons pride.

The bed is long but narrow, and the whole room seems long untouched, as though no one has slept here in years. There is no dust or any sign that the room is anything but well kept, but it has a distinctly _abandoned_ feeling all the same.

On the bedside table, there’s a picture of Harry, Granger, and Weasley. It looks to be from about fifth or sixth year. Harry and Weasley are still tall in that gangly, teenage way, neither having filled out yet. Granger seems smaller and more fragile than she does now. The change isn’t physical, but more in the way she carries herself—ever since the war, she’s seemed harder and more self-assured. Draco noticed it when they were at Hogwarts together for their eighth year, and he notices it even more now, seeing the sixteen-year-old girl she was after adjusting to the twenty-three-year-old woman she has become.

The three of them aren’t laughing or even really smiling; it isn’t a moment that Draco would think to capture. It is _ordinary_ , wholly commonplace. But their closeness is palpable, and it hits Draco sharply in the chest. They look at each other with so much understanding and touch so easily, just small pats from Weasley on Granger’s shoulder, or Granger’s arm slung loosely around Harry’s waist. They didn’t seem to know the camera was there, and none of them look in Draco’s direction. It’s the friendship he remembers seeing across a room when they were in school, and resenting. They all mattered to each other so much, and nothing else could touch them.

It’s different now. Now, Weasley says Harry is a selfish prick. Now, Granger says Harry has lost the right to mind.

Draco is still holding the picture when he hears the door click open behind him. If it were Granger, she would have asked him if he were all right. If it were Ginny, she would have joked lightly about him getting lost and pointed out that this was clearly not the loo. If it were Arthur or Molly, just returned home, they would have said how pleased they were that he could join them for dinner and perhaps reminisced about when this was still Weasley’s room.

It isn’t any of them. It’s Harry, and he doesn’t say anything at all, only waits for Draco to turn around.

Draco sets the picture down on the bedside table. “What are you doing up here?”

“I could ask the same of you.”

Draco turns then. Harry _knows_ why Draco made a feeble excuse to leave the sitting room; he doesn’t need Draco to tell him. “Do you want me to leave?”

“Do you even really want to be here?”

Draco is taken aback by the question, and Harry rolls his eyes before expanding.

“Why would you want to be around poor scum like the Weasleys, or Muggleborn filth like Hermione? What could possibly motivate you to spend time with any of them?”

“You know I’m not like that anymore,” Draco answers tightly. The insinuation hurts more than he’d have thought it would.

“I don’t know what you’re like at all.” His eyes are hard, more unfeeling than Draco has seen them since the morning after the first time, and Draco wonders if this is some sort of test. “I know you’re trying to become an Auror. I know you’ve won over Hermione and Arthur and now, apparently, Ginny. But I don’t know _why_.”

It isn’t a question, and Draco doesn’t have an answer. He meets Harry’s gaze head-on, and waits.

“Hermione told me they rejected you at first. You kept reapplying. You were waiting tables at a Muggle restaurant when they finally let you in.”

Draco nods.

“You’re willingly putting yourself in a position to risk your life for people who don’t respect you at all. Aligning yourself with people who don’t want anything to do with you, who call you names and refuse to work with you, who would turn on you in a second given the chance.”

Harry’s been talking to Weasley as well, then. These are the things Draco doesn’t tell Granger, but Weasley sees them every day. Draco nods again, after a moment.

“Why bother? Seems much more hardworking Hufflepuff to me,” Harry says mockingly. “What happened to your Slytherin sense of self-preservation?”

“Do you know anything about risk versus reward, Potter?”

“What do you mean?”

“There are a lot of risks in my chosen career path. I'm aware of that. Obviously my life will be put at risk in some situations. And of course, as with any occupation in the Wizarding world, my pride is on the line. That's why I worked in the Muggle world for a while; it cut the risks down to zero, and the money was still money. But consider the context, Harry. Is it so bad to risk your life when your life isn’t something particularly worth preserving?”

Harry opens his mouth at that, but Draco continues on.

“And the reward, well—with the jobs I could get after I finished at Hogwarts, I was nothing. The Ministry would only take me on as an errand boy, and I was seen as little more than a house elf. I was fired repeatedly, sometimes because of prejudice from my superiors, other times because customers complained and they didn’t think defending me would be worth it. But this… I’m already treated with sympathy almost as often as with derision. I have the likes of Hermione Granger and Arthur Weasley on my side, _publicly_ , and their word means so much more than that of those who still don't trust me. Yes, respect beats pity, but pity beats contempt.”

The hardness in Harry’s eyes is still there, but it’s lessening. At some point while Draco was talking, Harry must have stepped forward, as he’s much closer now. “And do you respect them?”

“Who?”

“Hermione. Arthur. Ginny. Ron. All these people you’ve convinced that you _are_ worth something.”

Draco wants to ask how Harry can talk about _respect_ when he seems to have alienated everyone that cares about him, when his best friends remark bitterly on his selfishness, but he can’t. He only nods again.

Harry continues staring at him intently, and Draco again gets the feeling that this is a test, somehow. He doesn’t know how to pass it, but he wants to rise to the challenge.

They look at each other, unmoving, for several seconds, until Draco decides to do something about it. He steps toward Harry and leans in, wanting to prove something, though he doesn’t know what. But Harry catches his shoulder and pushes him back, lightly. He’s still looking at Draco with a dare in his eyes. Draco tries again, and Harry stops him with a hand on his chest.

Draco stands motionless, his breathing ragged and loud in the still room. Harry’s eyes have a wicked spark to them now, which makes Draco both nervous and excited.

He’s surprised when Harry finally pulls him close and kisses him hard. He expects it, but it still catches him off guard somehow. Something about the new setting—not Harry’s bedroom or anywhere else in his home, or the bar or loo or dance floor of that club, but instead _Harry’s best friend’s childhood bedroom_ —makes Draco realise how _familiar_ this has come to feel, how natural kissing Harry now seems. There were moments early on when it seemed important to try to impress Harry with his technique, or when he was overwhelmed by Harry’s seemingly expert skill. But now this is comfortable, even _normal_. Even while Draco is anxious and confused when it comes to talking to Harry, he still knows exactly how to kiss him. He’s kissed other men, but it’s never been like this. This feels right. This feels like something he _should_ be doing.

He likes the way Harry touches him, how Harry’s hands move over his back and chest and arms and arse and hips, as if he needs to reassure himself that Draco is really present. Harry isn’t gentle about it, and something in that makes it even better. It feels like Harry is desperate for him, and Draco doesn’t want to think about why he needs to feel that.

Harry pushes him back against the wall, up against an orange Cannons hanging. Their bodies are flush against one another, touching everywhere, and Harry’s hands are pushing up his shirt at the sides to get at his skin. “So fucking hot,” Harry says, voice rough, and starts mouthing at Draco’s neck. “Why are you so fucking hot?”

It’s hard to remind himself that none of this means anything when Harry won’t stop saying these things. It’s also hard to remember that they are currently guests in someone else’s home when Harry grinds his hips forward like that and all Draco wants to do is get their trousers off. He wants to at least get Harry’s cock out, and maybe suck it if they can stop kissing long enough for him to get down there, but that would mean releasing his firm grip on Harry’s arse and separating their bodies at least a little, and he doesn’t want to do that.

Harry is thin but tightly muscled, with broad shoulders and narrow hips. He has a beautiful body, but it isn’t _really_ all that remarkable. In the past couple of months, Draco has had sex with plenty of men, many more attractive than Harry by far. But with each of them, Draco knew that he could be anyone, and it wouldn’t matter. He could swap out with another nameless bloke and it wouldn’t make any difference. With other men, Draco is just a body. With Harry, everything feels personal. If he were someone else, Harry would touch him differently, would kiss him differently, would say different things. But Harry isn’t with someone else, he’s with _him_. All of this is for _him_.

Harry wrenches away and holds Draco’s shoulders firmly against the wall. “I’m not coming in my pants like a teenager.”

“Okay,” Draco says, dazed.

He doesn’t expect Harry to start kissing him again after such an emphatic separation, but he does, only now he keeps some space between them and undoes the fastenings on Draco’s trousers. Harry’s fingers brush against Draco’s erection, which makes his hips jerk involuntarily, seeking more contact. Harry shoves Draco’s trousers and pants down to his knees, and when Draco opens his eyes as the kiss breaks, he sees that Harry has somehow managed to open his own trousers as well. Harry moves Draco’s hand to his cock and wraps his own around Draco’s. “You’re so sexy,” he says softly, his free hand thumbing at Draco’s nipples under his shirt. “So hard for me.” He starts stroking firmly. “Come on,” he says, and Draco moves his hand in the same rhythm.

Harry leans in close and Draco kisses him, assuming that’s what Harry wants, but Harry only returns it briefly. Draco opens his eyes and finds Harry looking right at him, his face mere centimetres away. He expects Harry to say something, to continue with the embarrassing nonsense he always says when his mouth isn’t otherwise busy, but he just rests his forehead against Draco’s and keeps _staring_. Draco gasps, and Harry’s hand moves faster. The air is hot and damp between them where their breath mingles, but Draco can’t pull away, or so much as look away. Harry’s eyes are entrancing, unfocused with lust but still fixed unwaveringly on Draco’s own. He thought Harry _saw_ him, before, but that was nothing compared to right now.

Harry’s eyes squeeze shut when he comes, his mouth open in a silent moan. He kisses Draco again then, hard and deep, and Draco finishes too. Harry’s hands move to Draco’s arse, and they feel sticky as he squeezes.

It was just their hands, but even so, Draco thinks that was the most intimate they’ve ever been.

Harry is quiet afterwards, the way he has been. He takes out his wand to clean up the mess and does up Draco’s trousers for him before attending to his own. Draco doesn’t know what any of this means, or if it means anything at all, but he feels sure that this is different from the nights that started at the club and ended in Harry’s bed. He doesn’t like how those nights ended.

As Harry straightens and re-buttons his shirt (which Draco doesn’t remember unbuttoning), Draco leans in and kisses him softly, briefly. Before Harry can ruin it by speaking, Draco leaves and goes downstairs.

Molly and Arthur have returned and greet Draco warmly, just as Ginny said they would. Weasley is there as well, looking cross.

“He went up to look for you both,” Granger whispers to Draco. “Couldn’t you have gone somewhere else?”

Harry comes down less than a minute later, and Weasley immediately pulls him aside, whispering furiously. Harry grins the whole while, completely unapologetic. Molly and Arthur, still wilfully oblivious, go to the kitchen.

“Do you see what I mean?” Ginny asks, grinning. “They won’t know until you fuck on the table in the middle of the meal.”

They don’t fuck on the table, during the meal or otherwise. They sit across from one another, Harry on one side with Weasley and Granger, Draco with Ginny and Arthur, Molly at the head. Harry nudges Draco’s foot and ankle every now and then under the table and catches his eye when he looks up. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t say anything to Draco at all. But something has changed between them, and Draco finds himself hoping.

—

There is a brief article in the Prophet, just as Ginny and Granger predicted. The photo is captioned _Ginny Weasley and soon-to-be sister-in-law Hermione Granger with Aurors-in-training Astoria Greengrass and Draco Malfoy_. The article is entirely speculation on Ginny’s disappearance from the public eye, career intentions, and presumed motherhood. It doesn’t mention Draco, Astoria, or even Granger, only that after six months without a single sighting, Miss Weasley was seen out with friends in Diagon Alley.

 _Friends_.

Peakes doesn’t like it, but Draco expected that. Peakes can always find something wrong with Draco. If the article had insinuated anything unsavoury on Draco’s part, Peakes would have never let it go, but not commenting on Draco at all seems to be even more offensive. It proves that Draco is manipulating everyone into forgetting all about his past. It proves that he is _getting away with it_.

Granger comes in one day just before Weasley gets off for lunch and smiles at Draco as she passes on her way to his cubicle. Draco and the other trainees are crowded into Stinton’s cubicle while he gives an incompetent tutorial on tracking, using only pins on a map and dramatic gesturing to aid his vague explanations. Draco and Astoria have been exchanging amused glances the whole time, and he almost misses Granger when she walks by.

He waves and immediately wishes he hadn’t. Peakes is glaring at him now, and Draco knows he won’t let this go with only a snide comment or two.

Stinton lets them out for lunch, and sure enough, Peakes corners Draco and Astoria and stops them just before they make it to the lift.

“How’d you convince her, Malfoy? How did a prick like you fool a girl that smart?”

Astoria stands between them, crossing her arms and glaring up at Peakes, but he looks right over her head.

“You don’t fool me. You’re still the same Death Eater, letting other people pull strings for your benefit. Hiding behind people and letting them fight for you.”

Draco knows he can’t say anything that will change his opinion, though he very well _could_ say something that would make Peakes feel justified in cursing him. He doesn’t say anything at all.

Astoria does, though. “Draco isn’t a Death Eater. He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“He’s a coward, is what he is,” Peakes spits, and he pulls out his wand. “You’re a coward, Malfoy.”

Draco will _not_ get in a duel with a fellow trainee, particularly not when they’re only just down the hall from a room full of Aurors who wouldn’t hesitate to side with Peakes. He will _not_ draw his wand. He will not jeopardise everything he’s worked for.

He doesn’t have to, because Peakes lowers his wand. “Auror Robards, sir,” he says respectfully, inclining his head. All malice has vanished from his voice.

“Mr Peakes,” Robards says in acknowledgement. He presses the button for the lift.

Draco stands frozen, terrified. It’s obvious that Peakes was ready to fight, and all he would have to do is claim Draco provoked him. Robards doesn’t need a good reason to throw Draco out of the program. He’ll take _any_ reason. As Head Auror, he was part of the decision to reject Draco in the first place. He thinks about how it looks—him with his back to the wall, Peakes holding his wand, Astoria clearly defending Draco. There is no question that Peakes is the aggressor, but he could turn it around on Draco with no effort at all.

“Sir,” Astoria starts, not respectfully at all.

Draco touches her shoulder, tacitly requesting her silence. She doesn’t continue.

“Miss Greengrass,” Robards says. There is no way he doesn’t know she was about to accuse him of turning a blind eye to what he’d interrupted. He _knows_ , and yet.

The lift doors open, and Robards walks through them. He did not acknowledge Draco once. Peakes smirks victoriously and follows Robards into the lift. Astoria turns around as the doors close, disappointment clear on her face.

“Draco,” she starts.

_You have to stand up for yourself. You can’t let them treat you this way. You have to stop this._

“I can’t,” Draco says. He turns away from her and walks back down the hall. The remainder of his lunch break is spent in the loo, eyes shut tight and lungs constricted, blocking his breath.

—

The photograph in the Daily Prophet shakes Draco’s foundations, but within a few short weeks, it becomes routine. He hadn’t realised the extent to which the public cared about even the most routine, mundane aspects of his new friends’ ( _friends_ ) lives. At his request, he has always met Granger in Muggle coffee shops. He knew this kept him safe from gossip and speculation, but he didn’t know that the gossip and speculation would be media-endorsed and not merely word-of-mouth. When they meet for lunch at the Leaky one Wednesday, a photographer from a cheap gossip rag takes their picture, and the next day there’s a sensationalised piece hypothesising that Granger has been lusting after him ever since she gave him legal help three years ago and plans to leave Weasley for him once he finishes Auror training. (There is no mention of Astoria, who ate with them as well but was in the loo at the time the photograph was taken.)

He is photographed again when he goes to lunch that Saturday with Granger, Ginny (with a cooing James in tow), and Ginny’s brothers George and Bill. The same gossip rag latches on to Weasley’s absence as evidence of Granger’s passion for Draco, but an ever-so-slightly more legitimate magazine publishes their picture with further speculation on James’s paternity. Draco is half afraid he’ll join the list of possible fathers, but this particular piece only goes on a barely civil tirade insisting that Ginny has no right to hide this information and the public deserves to know. Astoria reads this aloud to Draco on Tuesday morning, and they both have a laugh. Two days later, Draco sees the same magazine on a side table in his mother’s sitting room, and he finds it far less humorous.

The strangest change is at the Ministry itself. He’s used to the Ministry. It isn’t an unusual or interesting place, not anymore. The last time he received significant amounts of attention at the Ministry was five years ago when he was on trial. That much remains the same. He’s as invisible there as he’s ever been.

But there’s something he hadn’t ever given any thought before: when Harry is only seen by the public at the Ministry, the Ministry becomes the only place for photographers to ambush him. Before they started sleeping together, Draco hadn’t given much thought to Harry’s constant appearance in the papers. Now, he’s come to realise that in the absence of access to Harry’s personal life, even the smallest things become newsworthy. If he says more than a few words to anyone other than Weasley, Granger, or Minister Shacklebolt anywhere that anyone can see him—the Atrium, the lift, even a hallway—the media will cover it. They’ll write about him making eye contact with someone for too long, standing in one place for longer than necessary, taking any indirect route or visiting any level but the first.

It amuses Draco, to an extent. He cannot fathom how any of this is _news_ , and it’s particularly ridiculous in light of what Harry _really_ gets up to. What would they do if they saw him in his Muggle club wear? If they saw him kissing Draco? If they saw him fucking Draco in a public loo? If they knew that Ginny’s child, the mystery of mysteries, is in fact Harry’s?

But they don’t notice Draco. He thinks he’s beginning to understand why Harry acted the way he did that first morning after. He understands the resistance to eye contact, the complete silence while others were around. Draco stays invisible so long as he is unacknowledged. He can stand next to Harry and remain completely innocuous, but if he _talked_ to Harry, well—he’d never hear the end of it. If Peakes doesn’t like that Hermione Granger is on Draco’s side, what would happen if _Harry Potter_ was?

It doesn’t become an issue because Harry knows how to play his part. The closest thing to public acknowledgement that Draco gets from him is on a Thursday afternoon when Draco is returning from lunch with Granger just as Harry and Weasley are on their way out. Draco doesn’t notice anything unusual about it; Harry does stop briefly, but he only speaks to and makes eye contact with Granger. On Monday, Astoria tells him he and Harry made a fetching pair on the front page of the Prophet, in her bitingly sarcastic way, and Draco assumes she’s only giving him a hard time for being in yet another photograph.

But on Wednesday, he enters the dining room for a silent dinner with his parents and the Prophet is right there on the table. In the photograph, Harry is looking right at him, while his own gaze is fixed somewhere on the floor. Harry is smiling a wide, wholly _Harry_ grin, nothing like the calculated Harry Potter smiles. He may have been smiling at something Granger or Weasley said, but Draco can see the difference in him, and he knows his parents can too. Neither of them mention it, but the paper sits there with the photograph visible for the entire meal, the smile spreading across Harry’s face over and over as his eyes stay fixed on Draco.

—

Three months ago, Draco didn’t think he could ever like Ginny Weasley. He mentally cast her as his rival, the socially acceptable partner for Harry. She was well-liked, famous, a Weasley, _female_. The person Harry would fall in love with if he could fall in love. He thought he would hate her long red hair and open smile and sloping curves and smooth, freckled skin.

But Ginny is so _warm_ , and Draco doesn’t hate her at all. She reminds him of Astoria sometimes, all snappish and fierce, so much presence in a petite frame. He likes her. He really does like her, and she seems to really like him, and they may really be friends.

Tonight, they’re sprawled on the large bed in the first floor bedroom of Harry’s house, James asleep between them. Draco has had sex with Harry in this bed, and when that thought occurs to him, it also occurs to him that Ginny has probably had sex with Harry in this bed as well. He thinks this should bother him, but it doesn’t.

Harry isn’t here. Harry is out somewhere, probably fucking some stranger, while two of his undefined repeat sex partners spend time together in his home, without him. When Draco thinks about it that way, it seems very strange, even though it feels completely natural as it’s happening.

At the Burrow just before dinner tonight, Ginny hissed to him and Harry, “She’s driving me _mad_.”

She didn’t have to explain further. Draco has been growing quite fond of Molly Weasley, but he can understand a frustration with her constant fussing. He can’t imagine what it would be like to try to be a mother while your own mother won’t stop hovering and trying to mother _you_.

“I have to get out of the house after dinner,” Ginny said, still hushed. “How does quality time with your son sound?”

Harry was sitting on the sofa with Draco, an arm draped casually over his shoulders. (The extent of Molly’s obliviousness continued to impress Draco.) For some people, this public display of affection, however small, would have come with a hesitation to discuss plans for anonymous sex, whether out of consideration for Draco’s feelings or simply respect for social norms. Harry had no such hesitation. “I’m going out tonight.”

Once, he’d said this and Draco had asked, “Can I come?” Harry’s dismissal felt far worse when direct than when merely implied, Draco found. This time, he ignored the twinge of hurt and focused on the weight of Harry’s arm on his shoulders and how wonderful it felt to sit together like this, in front of everyone.

“Well, I’m going to tell Mum that I’m spending the night at yours so you can see some more of Jamie, all right?”

Harry shrugged.

After dinner, Ginny leaned close to Draco and whispered, “Keep us company?” Draco couldn’t have said no if he’d wanted to.

They made their excuses to Molly and Arthur, playing it as though Harry would be staying in. If Molly didn’t like that Draco would be joining them, she didn’t let it show. Harry Flooed along with them, but once he changed into a sluttier outfit, he was gone.

Ginny led him to the first floor bedroom, full of nostalgia for when she and Granger shared the room one summer, years ago. “It doesn’t look anything like it did then, of course,” she told him. “Harry made so many changes.”

Now she’s telling him all about how different the house used to look, how it had all sorts of awful Black family decorations and dark artefacts. From what Harry has told him, Draco has put together that this place belonged to his godfather, Sirius Black, Draco’s first cousin once removed, and that after the war, Harry got rid of just about everything, repainted and refurnished, and removed all of the old family magic woven throughout the house. Draco hasn’t had much of an idea of what it looked like before, though, until now.

“It was sort of an obsession, I think,” Ginny is saying. “He had to throw himself into _something_ , give himself something to do, just to stay sane. He worked nonstop for almost a year.” She goes quiet for a moment, and then, “That was some year.”

Draco nods. He knows they experienced it differently, but the year after the final battle at Hogwarts was hard for everyone, and it feels like a shared experience despite the differences. He thinks of the trials that took all summer, of then returning to a school that was both a safe haven and the site of many of his worst memories. Ginny was there that year. She was in almost all of his classes. He’d forgotten that, somehow.

“Were you together then?” he asks, despite himself.

Ginny, Granger, and Luna Lovegood were a unit that year, he remembers. At first he thought it was so odd to see Granger flanked by the two younger girls rather than Harry and Weasley, but by the end of the year it seemed even more natural. He remembers weekends in Hogsmeade when the three girls would meet up with Harry, Weasley, and Neville Longbottom. It always looked like a triple date, but it’s not as though he were ever close enough with any of them to really know.

“Harry and I?” Ginny asks. At Draco’s nod, she laughs, like part of him had known she would. “We were never together. Not unless you count the two months at the end of my fifth year, and I don’t, not really. We were just kids.”

“You always seemed like a couple, whenever I saw you together.”

“It wasn’t… we were close. We _are_ close. But we weren’t _together_. We were—are—good friends. Best friends, even. I don’t know.”

“But you have sex? I mean, did you have sex then?”

Ginny raises her eyebrows, and he feels a little awkward about having asked, but he meets her look head on. It’s been niggling at him for months now, not knowing what they are to each other, or what they’ve been to each other. Knowing there is no romantic attachment is something, but he still wonders _why_.

“We did have sex, sometimes. Harry had been a virgin, actually, which was sweet. But we never made each other any promises, and there was always a sort of understanding that while we liked each other enough and were comfortable enough together, we didn’t feel about each other the way Hermione and my brother did.” She looks pensive for a moment, and then, “Have you ever had a fuck buddy?”

He’s shocked by the frankness of the question, by the implication that this is what Harry is (or was) to her, but even more so, he’s shocked that she would ask something that he knows she already has the answer to. “I mean, there’s Harry,” he says after a pause.

She shakes her head. “You two aren’t fuck buddies.”

He wants to ask how she knows, what tipped her off, because if _he_ doesn’t know what they are, how could she? But he is far too surprised at how _sure_ she sounds to find the words to ask, and she continues on.

“It’s sort of… we know the other person is attracted to us, and cares about us enough not to be a total prick about it, but doesn’t care so much that they have any expectations. It’s easy. So when we don’t want to go through the whole production of finding a new sex partner, we have each other.”

“And you’ve gone on for years like this?”

“Well, we’re done now,” she says, matter-of-fact, like that’s obvious. “And back then—”

“You’re ‘done’?” Draco echoes. The finality reverberates in his head. He looks at James, peacefully asleep between them, and so small.

“We can’t be irresponsible like that anymore, not with Jamie to think about. It’s one thing to have that sort of arrangement when it’s just us we’re affecting, but this is our son. He doesn’t deserve parents who use each other like that.”

“But wouldn’t—” The words catch, and he has to pause to clear his throat. “Wouldn’t the natural conclusion, then, be that you ought to settle down? Give a proper relationship together a try?”

Ginny is oddly quiet as she composes her answer. Her expression is inscrutable. He wants to believe that she wants it but is protecting herself from Harry’s callousness, but he knows too much about her now. He knows that she loves her sport more than anything, save perhaps Jamie. He knows how much she enjoys the freedom of casual sex. He knows she really, truly does not want to be married, to Harry or anyone else. It would be simpler, he thinks, if she wanted it but couldn’t have it. Instead, she is stuck feeling like she _should_ want it, but completely unable to force herself to. He guesses.

“We’re too close for that, I think,” she says at last. “We care about each other too much to let the other into a situation they don’t truly want. I think if we loved each other a little less, we could fake it, and maybe eventually settle into a sort of contentment. But I don’t want to settle for him, and I don’t want him to settle for me.”

“I guess I can understand that,” Draco says.

“It’s a pity, though. I really can’t have sex with him ever again, not if I want Jamie to have a stable home, but sometimes I just _really_ want to suck on that gorgeous prick, you know?”

Draco barely suppresses a surprised squeal at that. “ _Hmmmng_?” is what comes out.

“You know what I’m talking about. Doesn’t he have the most mouth-watering—”

“Ginny,” he interrupts, voice high. “Ginny, while I can perhaps wrap my mind around the arrangement the pair of you have had, I’m not sure I can handle hearing about it in explicit detail.”

But she’s grinning now, and he knows he can’t stop her. “You agree, though, right? Sometimes you’ve just got to go down on him. But it’s even better how much he loves to suck it, isn’t it?”

His brain practically self-destructs.

“We used to have threesomes sometimes,” she continues, a wicked look in her eyes, and he _knows_ she’s only saying this because his reactions entertain her but he can’t stop the heat rising in his face. “I’ll never forget the first time I saw him give a blow job.”

“Ginny,” he says desperately, “ _please_.”

She dissolves into giggles, and he waits patiently for her to compose herself. James sleeps on; from what Ginny has said, he used to wake constantly, but in the last few weeks has started to sleep solidly for hours at a time.

“You’re just gay, yeah?” she says, laughter still in her tone. “No flexibility there?”

It doesn’t _feel_ like a come-on, but he can’t help checking anyway. “You don’t want to—”

“No, definitely not!” she says quickly. “Only curious. I’m flexible, you know. Mostly men, but I’ve fooled around some with women. When I’m on E, or drunk enough, I’m pretty open to it.”

Draco hasn’t ever considered being _open to it_. For a while he thought he had to, and once he knew he didn’t, he stopped thinking of it as an option at all. He recognises when women are attractive—he recognises that Ginny, for one, is exceptionally beautiful. People stop and stare at Granger sometimes because she is famous, but she’d be as invisible as Astoria if she weren’t. People would stop and stare at Ginny even if she weren’t a Quidditch player and a Weasley and an important figure in the war. Even Draco can’t help staring at her sometimes. But there isn’t any _desire_ there. When he thinks of that feeling, he can only summon up images of Harry, or of faceless bodies of fit Muggle strangers.

“I don’t think I’m flexible much at all,” he says at last.

“Harry-sexual?” she quips.

He wonders how his thoughts can be that transparent, or whether perhaps Ginny has gathered that Harry was his first, and the only person he’s been with more than once.

She doesn’t tease him any further, though. “You know, I thought it was just a laugh,” she says instead, and her voice has turned newly sober. “When he brought you, I mean. I thought it was some sort of ‘bugger off’ to my mum, and I thought it was such a hilariously _Harry_ move, yeah? But it—it’s about him and you, not him and other people.”

He has been looking up at the ceiling, lying flat on his back as he is, but now he looks at Ginny and finds her already looking at him, rather seriously.

“It _is_ about you, you know.”

Draco doesn’t know. Sometimes he thinks maybe, possibly, perhaps—but no. He’s very convenient, given the way Harry’s friends have taken him in and created situations in which he is easily available. He’s private, the way Harry is, and very determined to keep himself under the radar, which means there’s no fear of things going public. And he’s willing to do anything Harry ever wants in bed. Draco doesn’t know whether any of this is _about him_ ; he only knows that Harry wants to have sex with him and doesn’t generally object to his presence.

“I see the way you are together. The way he is when he’s with you. Even when you’re out at the Ministry—you saw that picture last week, didn’t you? You saw how he smiled. Anyone could spot the difference. If you’d been making eye contact, it would have been a headline. They couldn’t make anything of it because ‘Harry Potter smiles’ isn’t news when they have him smiling blandly in every photo, but anyone could see this was a _real_ one, and it was because of you.”

Draco doesn’t know what to say, but he doesn’t look away. Ginny looks very solemn and even concerned, as though she feels telling him this is incredibly important. It’s surreal. But then, so much of his life of late has been nothing like the reality he thought he knew.

Ginny continues looking at him intently, but she seems to be done with what she wanted to say. She thinks Harry is _serious_ about him. Draco can’t even begin to conceive of the pair of them as a _couple_ , of them holding hands and going on dates and announcing to the world that they mean something to each other. He doesn’t know why Ginny felt it was necessary to put that in his head. Harry is out with someone else at this very moment. Harry will never settle down. Harry will never share anything of himself with the world.

“Is that why you haven’t let anyone know that James is Harry’s?” Draco asks at last, after a long silence.

“Hmm?”

“Is the idea that it will minimize the scandal of it all? Not confirming that James is a bastard child, and Harry Potter’s at that—is it meant to keep the public speculation to a minimum? I suppose it could die down eventually, but so far the mystery is only feeding their curiosity, you know.”

“Yes,” Ginny says, “I know.” She takes a deep breath. “It’s difficult. I’m not pleased with how they’ve decided to go about it. Letting everyone know Harry’s the father _will_ involve a bit of scandal, but it will have to happen eventually, and putting it off isn’t going to make it any easier. It might even be more scandalous if it looks like we’ve been shamefully covering it up all this time—and it _will_ look like that because we _have_. They had months to figure something out, but they still aren’t sure how to fit this into the Harry Potter they’ve come up with.”

“‘They’?”

“Well, it’s not as though Harry makes these decisions on his own. At this point, Harry Potter is more of a figurehead than a person. It’s a combination of input from all of the important people. Kingsley, of course. Sometimes my father. The remainder of Order in general, really. You know Hermione writes all of his speeches.”

“She does?”

“Of course she does. Harry hates public speaking. He never has any idea what to say or how to say it. The only way he could get through that first summer was to say someone else’s words, and he became really good at that. So good that the system stuck, I guess. He’s not a complete puppet—he only listens to people he trusts, and he can do things his way whenever he wants. But he doesn’t really ever want to do things his way. But yes, in regards to Jamie—they haven’t reached a verdict yet, so the decision continues to be no decision at all.”

It’s unsettling how easy it is to accept that. It should be surprising that what he'd come to see as Harry Potter for the past several years was entirely, or nearly entirely, manufactured. This should be hard to believe. The speeches, the statements, probably the interviews too—very little (perhaps none) of that came from him. But it fits in perfectly with what Draco has come to know of him so far. Another piece of the endless puzzle.

Harry wouldn’t see it as lying, would he? He’d see it as his duty.

“January is approaching,” he says, and they're done talking about Harry. Now it's all Ginny's imminent return to Quidditch and the beginning of Draco’s final six months of training, during which he’ll finally have the chance to shadow Aurors during field work. He’s excited for her and she’s excited for him, and Draco thinks that maybe they could have been friends even without his ever going home with Harry.

They keep talking even as they both grow tired, and they’re still awake when Harry gets home at almost two.

“Quality family time?” he says flatly. Draco wonders if he’s angry, for a second, but there’s a hint of a smile playing about his lips as he approaches the bed. He leans down and kisses Ginny’s forehead, giving her shoulder a light squeeze. James has shifted toward Draco in his sleep and now lies against the side of Draco’s abdomen. Harry leans across Ginny and kisses James’s forehead, too.

“Come on,” he says to Draco. He doesn’t kiss his forehead, of course.

Draco looks to Ginny, who grins and winks. She carefully picks up James so that Draco can get up. “Don't be too loud. I’m hoping to get a solid night’s sleep.”

Harry doesn't comment, but Draco can't help flushing and saying, “We’ll be on the fourth floor, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Noise carries,” she says, still grinning.

Harry makes no moves to touch Draco, who follows him upstairs in silence. When they’ve entered his room, Harry closed the door behind them, which makes sense but catches Draco off guard anyway. He’s used to them being alone in the house and just fucking with the door wide open. Or against the door, or in the hall, or on the stairs, or on the floor of the landing. Anywhere, really. Anywhere but in his bedroom with the door closed, taking care to be quiet. It seems so domestic.

Harry finally touches him then, now that they’re away from Ginny and the door is closed. He tugs Draco forward by the front of his jumper and kisses him. He’s been smoking and drinking and probably sucking on strangers’ tongues, but he still tastes familiar. He still tastes like Harry, and even while he smells like sweat and alcohol and smoke, there’s that Harry-smell lingering underneath.

Harry kisses him deeply but doesn’t seem concerned with taking their clothes off, or getting horizontal. He gets languid and slow like this when he's drunk sometimes, and Draco loves it. He loves Harry kissing his neck softly, with no sucking or biting, and Harry’s hands creeping up under his jumper and t-shirt to run gently over the skin of his hips and the small of his back. He loves the warm, fond way Harry looks at him, with no thought to keeping up appearances.

They finally lie down on the bed, but there is still no urgency to it. Harry has him lying with his head comfortably nestled in the pillows, his jumper and t-shirt pushed up under his armpits so Harry can kiss and lick and suck his way down his chest. Draco has one hand in Harry’s hair and the other loosely gripping the back of his shirt. He feels warm and sensitised all over and so turned on he wants to scream, but he’s enjoying this far too much to speed it up.

Harry opens Draco’s trousers and slides them down his hips just far enough to get his cock out. He strokes it a bit, kissing Draco’s hip and lower abdomen. “Look at you,” he says quietly. “Look at you.”

Draco is too turned on to feel self-conscious. He doesn’t know why Harry says things like that, or what he thinks is so remarkable about the way Draco looks. He is in good shape, yes, but very narrow and unappealingly pallid. He's also constantly bruised, whether from duelling or sparring practice, wankers like Peakes shoving past him too hard when they pass each other, or just from sex with Harry. He doesn’t much care for how he looks naked, but Harry seems to like it rather a lot. At times like this, though, when Draco is so hard he can barely process complete phrases, Harry could say any number of horribly embarrassing things and it wouldn’t faze him at all.

And then—fuck, there it is, the face Ginny was talking about, the eager expression as he takes Draco’s cock into his mouth. For a moment Draco thinks he should feel uncomfortable, that the knowledge that Harry likes doing this to anyone and not just to him should bother him a little.

But Harry looks up at him and meets his eyes, and it feels personal. It feels personal as Harry sucks on the head of his cock and strokes the length of it firmly, maintaining eye contact all the while. It feels personal when Harry tugs his trousers the rest of the way down and runs his hands along the skin of Draco's inner thighs and presses his fingers on that sensitive place behind Draco’s balls. It feels personal when Harry takes him further in, deep inside, gripping Draco’s thigh hard with one hand and pressing one finger into him with the other. It feels personal when the hand on his thigh moves to where Draco's own is tightly gripping the duvet, and Harry weaves their fingers together.

When Draco comes, Harry swallows all of it, and he kisses the head of his cock when he pulls off. Draco feels completely liquid afterwards, lying pliant as Harry pulls his remaining clothing all the way off, as well as his own. He expects that Harry will expect reciprocation, and he wants to give it.

But Harry turns out the lights and pulls the duvet over them. Draco is disoriented for a moment—they’ve never had sex with all of the lights off—but then he feels Harry’s weight shifting beside him, and Harry reaches out to wrap an arm around him and pull him close. It isn’t long before his breathing evens out, slow warm huffs against Draco's neck.

“It's about him and you,” Ginny said. Draco thinks he might be beginning to believe her.

—

The first time they spend an entire day together is an accident. Draco Apparated to Harry’s after another tense, silent dinner with his parents with another Daily Prophet pointedly left on the table, again featuring him with Harry and Granger and Weasley. His mother cast so many worried glances between him and his father that when he finished eating, he immediately Apparated away. It was a Saturday night and he didn’t really think Harry would be home, but he couldn’t be in the Manor for another second. If Harry brought someone home with him, well, Draco could leave.

But Harry was already home, sitting with Ginny on the floor of the drawing room in front of the sofa. He held James in his arms, and for a second Draco felt like an intruder. Then Ginny smiled hugely. “Come in! Sit!”

Ginny had escaped after dinner again, and because Draco wasn't there to keep her company, Harry stayed in. It’s still early, and Draco half expects him to go out now that Draco’s here. He doesn’t. He stays in with Ginny and James and Draco for the entire night. Ginny and James sleep in the first floor bedroom again, and Harry and Draco fuck quietly upstairs with the door closed. In the morning, Ginny makes breakfast. Harry stays in bed and doesn’t come down until Ginny and Draco are both almost done with their eggs, and he starts his coffeemaker without so much as a _good morning_ , largely ignoring the plate sitting out for him.

“You should both come for lunch,” Ginny says. “Mum would love it.”

Harry shrugs, which is as much of a yes as she’ll get before his coffee. She kisses them both on the cheek before going upstairs to fetch James, still asleep, and Floo home. “Come around eleven, all right?”

That leaves them almost two hours to themselves. More than enough time to fuck at least once, but Draco doesn’t want to do anything to irritate morning Harry, so he finishes his breakfast in silence as Harry sips his coffee and has a few bites of now-cold toast. They’ve reached the point of comfortably being together without feeling the need to fill the air with conversation, which both thrills and frightens Draco. The closer they get, and the more settled Draco feels, the harder it will be if ( _when_ ) it all ends.

“Shower,” Harry says when he finishes his coffee, and it doesn’t sound like a suggestion or invitation, but he nudges Draco’s shoulder slightly with his elbow as he walks past, which feels like invitation enough.

They take a long, languorous shower and jerk each other off under the water. It feels very _settled_ to Draco. Exhilarating and terrifying. On the surface, it isn’t any different from that first shower the morning after the first time, and Draco can’t put his finger on what has changed. But it _is_ different, and it _has_ changed. Somehow.

They steal kisses throughout the whole multi-step process of getting dressed, which is also the same and different to that first time. Harry starts getting handsy again, but by now it’s already a quarter to eleven and they’re almost fully dressed, so they keep it to deep kissing. They straighten up, conceal the various visible marks they’ve left on each other, and arrive at the Burrow five minutes early.

But no one is home. Instead, they’re greeted by a messy note from Ginny on the kitchen table.

_H & D —_  
 _Had to run to Wheezes for George, brought Jamie cos Mum and Dad are at Bill and Fleur’s to see Dominique and Victoire (they’re ill and can’t make it to lunch sadly!)_  
 _I think we’re eating at noon so feel free to entertain yourselves for an hour._  
 _That’s assuming you aren’t already late from entertaining yourselves an extra time or two!_  
 _G_

“‘Entertain yourselves’?” Draco reads, to which Harry chuckles.

“Not a bad idea.” He lightly bites Draco’s earlobe.

“Harry—”

“No one’s here,” Harry points out. “And we’ve only entertained ourselves the once.”

“Three times,” Draco counters.

Harry nips at his neck. “Once _today_.”

“That’s true.” Harry’s hands are wandering around to his arse now, and he is forgetting any objections to this.

Kissing Harry is intoxicating and dizzying and all of those absurd things he’ll never admit aloud. Harry knows exactly how to touch him, and after the last few months, Draco’s learned exactly how to touch Harry. He knows how Harry will react when he sucks at that spot on his collarbone, or lightly traces the line of his spine under his shirt, or bites _just there_ on the side of his neck. They’re good together. Even in the Weasleys’ kitchen, the edge of the table digging uncomfortably into the backs of Draco’s thighs, it’s so much better than it could ever be with anyone else.

“Do you have lube?” he asks Harry, and Harry laughs and presses his hips forward against Draco’s.

“What do you think?”

Draco can feel the small tube in Harry’s front pocket, though it takes him a few moments to pay attention to it, as Harry’s erection is significantly larger and more conspicuous. It was a silly question; of course Harry has lube.

Draco lifts himself up to sit on the edge of the table and wrap his legs around Harry. They grind against each other, hard and desperate, and Draco isn’t quite sure he can wait for lube and penetration. He’s already so close, and Harry is touching him so roughly, digging his fingers into Draco’s hips hard enough that there will probably be bruises later. “I want you so much,” Draco whispers, and Harry kisses him fiercely.

“Fucking—” Harry groans, his hand groping between them. “Fucking _zippers_ , why do you wear trousers that zip—”

“Easier than buttons,” Draco says into his mouth. “And laces, and snaps—”

“Nothing’s easier than snaps,” Harry argues, his words muffled by Draco’s tongue. “And these have—they have a button, too.”

“Same as your jeans,” he says, but it doesn’t matter anymore; Harry’s got them open. He’s touching Draco through his pants and mouthing at his neck, and Draco moans. “Hurry, please, oh _fuck_ , hurry up—”

“Just wait a second.” Harry pulls at his trousers and Draco holds himself up off the table with his hands so Harry can get them off, sitting down again as Harry tugs them down his legs.

“You forgot these,” Draco tells him, indicating his pants.

“Shut up,” Harry says, and kisses him. He shoves at the elastic waist of Draco’s pants and wraps his hand around Draco’s cock. “Just fucking shut up and wait a second—”

Harry stops himself and tenses, but Draco doesn’t understand why. The rushing noise in the fireplace doesn’t register. The two quick footsteps don’t register. The surprised gasp and quiet pop of Apparition don’t register. All he realises is that Harry’s hand on his cock isn’t moving anymore and a look of panic is taking over Harry’s features.

Then: “Molly,” Harry says, and Draco understands.

He has no idea what to do or say, and the one nonsensical thought his mind provides is _At least my bare arse wasn’t on her table._

He tries to will away his erection, but Harry is still dishevelled and flushed and beautiful, and Draco’s body won’t listen. Draco’s trousers are still on his left leg, hanging off under his knee, and he struggles to get his right foot back into them. He doesn’t remember taking off his shoes; one is under the table, but he must have kicked off the other a little too enthusiastically because he doesn’t see it anywhere.

“Did she leave? Where did she—”

“In the sitting room, dears!” Molly calls shrilly. “Please don’t—” She clears her throat. “Please don’t come in before you’re decent!”

“Does she—” Draco starts, but Harry shakes his head and hands him his other shoe, which had been on one of the chairs.

“Can you please just—” He doesn’t finish, only motions mutely at Draco’s persisting hard-on.

Draco’s face heats. “Yeah, sorry, I’ll, er—” He doesn’t know what to say. Harry hasn’t _hidden_ this from them, not exactly; he’s simply avoided saying anything about it outright. Even so, he probably intended to tell her and Arthur eventually, and this certainly isn’t how he planned for it to go.

“Draco,” Harry says quietly. Draco looks up from the floor and meets Harry’s excruciatingly green eyes. Harry looks like he wants to say something, but he presses his lips together and shakes his head. Instead, he reaches out and squeezes Draco’s hand once, before turning and walking to the sitting room.

Draco runs a hand through his hair, straightens his shirt, and follows.

He expects horror, outrage, shock. He expects catastrophe. He does not expect Molly to greet them with an exasperated but good humoured, “Six bedrooms in the house and you choose the kitchen?”

Draco looks back and forth between her and Harry, bewildered. Harry stares at the carpet and shrugs. He looks like a sullen, embarrassed thirteen-year-old preparing for a scolding.

“Harry, dear, did you think I didn’t know?” Molly asks gently, looking to Draco when Harry continues to avoid eye contact. “Goodness, with the way you’ve been going on for the last month I’d have to be blind not to see it!”

Harry looks up then, but his lips remain pressed together in a tight line. Draco catches himself wondering if he might cry, which is ridiculous—Harry wouldn’t _cry_ , not over this.

“Harry,” Molly says, so warm and kind, “you know you’re one of ours.” She lays her hand on Harry’s shoulder, and Draco half expects him to shrug it off, but he stays still. “Arthur and I—we just want you to be happy, whatever that means for you. You’re family, dear, and we love you.”

“I know this isn’t what you wanted,” Harry says. His voice is quiet, but it doesn’t shake.

Molly smiles and shakes her head. “It’s your happiness, Harry, not ours. We only want all of our kids to be happy.”

It’s Molly that starts crying, not Harry, but she’s smiling all the while. She pulls Harry into a tight hug that seems to melt the tension right out of him. He hugs her back just as hard, and kisses her cheek as the hug ends.

“And you, Draco,” she says, turning her wet, happy eyes to him, “you’re a good boy. You’ve come such a long way, dear, and Arthur is so proud of you, and so am I.” The last words are muffled as she wraps her arms around Draco’s middle and squeezes him tightly. He is almost too surprised to return the hug, but she holds it long enough that he manages to hug her briefly before she releases him.

She and Harry smile at each other for what feels like a very long time. Draco’s sure there’s something he’s missed, something neither of them is saying, but it seems like everything is all right, now. He wants Ginny to come home and see this; he’s somehow certain that this will help her current frustration with her mother a great deal.

“Molly?” he says, once it’s been long enough that he isn’t afraid he’s ruining the moment. “Was there something you needed? Ginny said you were with Bill and his family.”

“Oh, yes!” Molly exclaims. “I nearly forgot all about it. I have to start cooking; everyone will be arriving soon and there isn’t anything on the stove yet! I meant to start earlier, but with the girls feeling ill—”

“We can help,” Draco offers, and Harry looks at him curiously. Molly is thrilled at the offer, though she tries to play it off as though she doesn’t need it. She starts a knife chopping vegetables for soup and has Draco supervise and provide it with a supply of onions and carrots, and she gets Harry to work doing something with raw meat.

The family slowly trickles in throughout the next hour, save Bill and Fleur and their daughters—Ginny with James and George in tow, Percy and his wife Audrey, Charlie, George’s wife Angelina and their son Fred, Arthur, and of course, Weasley and Granger. With all of the traffic coming through the kitchen fireplace, Molly shoos Draco and Harry both out of the kitchen.

“Is something wrong?” Ginny asks in a hushed voice, sidling up next to Draco where he stands in the sitting room. “My mum just snatched my dad away right as he arrived and started whispering frantically on the second floor landing.”

“We got here early,” Draco says quietly, right into her ear, “and since no one was home, we…”

She laughs and shakes her head. “You _didn’t_.”

“Your mum caught us on the kitchen table.”

Her smile vanishes, replaced by wide-eyed shock. “ _In the act_?” she mouths.

Draco nods, but amends, “Well, almost the act? _An_ act. I did have my pants on, which helped, I think.”

“So is she—”

“She was great about it, actually. She knew we were—well, she knew something was going on. Not that she wanted to see it for herself, but…”

“I would have thought she’d be disappointed, at least,” Ginny says, pensive.

“She said she and your dad just want Harry to be happy.”

George comes up to them then, which ends the conversation unceremoniously, and Ginny looks very thoughtful for a while afterwards. At one point she talks to Harry quietly in the corner, but that is broken up when an oblivious Percy joins them.

There are too many people for them to all eat in the kitchen, so everyone winds up milling about and settling in small groups in both the kitchen and sitting room. Draco ends up in the kitchen with Harry, Arthur, Charlie, Percy, Audrey, Granger, and Weasley. No one comments on Draco and Harry sitting side by side, but Granger smiles every time she looks across the table at them, and Arthur seems to barely keep himself from doing the same.

After lunch, the family leaves gradually, just as they arrived. Eventually, he and Harry are the only ones left who don’t live there. They settle in the sitting room with Ginny and James, once Molly and Arthur have disappeared upstairs. Ginny interrogates them about what happened; she tried asking Molly about it but Molly hushed her in the name of their privacy, given all of the other family members present. Harry is rather stoic, but does reveal that Arthur pulled him aside just before lunch was ready and expressed the same sort of sentiments that Molly had.

Ginny is thrilled. “I never even let myself hope it would go this well,” she says, grinning.

Harry shrugs, but he’s smiling a little.

Draco can tell her mind is whirring with all of the possible implications for her—whether Molly is done with the marriage hints for good, whether her parents just wanting Harry to be happy means they can accept whatever makes _her_ happy, whether an illegitimate child with a Harry Potter in a relationship with another man would be easier to swallow for the public. Draco can see her processing all of it, and he knows her mind is going to the same place his is, particularly in regards to that last one. Harry may never want _any_ of his personal life to be public knowledge, but it _will_ come out that he’s James’s father, sooner or later, and Draco can’t help wondering whether acceptance from Molly and Arthur might make Harry willing to share his bisexuality with the Wizarding public as well. What has looked like a pipe dream for months no longer seems impossible.

They stay with Ginny and James for long enough that Molly insists they stay for dinner as well. “You clearly aren’t feeding yourself nearly enough, dear,” she says to Draco, patting his forearm.

It’s a pleasant meal, and at times Draco manages to forget about what happened at this very table only hours earlier. Afterwards, he and Harry say their goodbyes. Molly and Arthur always say goodbye warmly, but this is the first time that both have taken the time to hug Harry and Draco individually and at length. Tonight, Ginny has no interest in using them as an escape and only gives them each quick hugs; it’s apparent that she wants them to go so she can talk to her parents candidly about the situation.

When they get back to Grimmauld Place, Harry immediately shoves Draco up against the closest wall and starts frantically working at their clothing. The lube that has been waiting in his front pocket all day finally comes out, and he turns Draco around and fucks him right there against the wall. They go up to Harry’s room and have sex a second time, somewhat less desperately. Draco dozes off afterwards, sated and exhausted.

He wakes an hour later, alone. For a moment, he expects the worst; Harry has gone off to get high and fuck a series of nameless strangers, and he regrets everything to do with Draco, with all of this. Draco’s lungs seize up, just for a moment. But Harry’s wand is lying on the bedside table. His and Draco’s clothes are still in a crumpled pile at the foot of the bed, where they dropped them when they came in. Nothing is out of place. Harry did not leave in a panic.

Draco rifles through the pile of clothing and puts on his pants and Harry’s t-shirt, not caring to deal with getting fully dressed. He finds Harry in the sitting room, slouched on the sofa in his jeans and nothing else, a tumbler of amber liquid in hand. There’s a fire going in the fireplace, and the light dances over Harry’s features, glinting off his glasses brightly enough to obscure his eyes.

His _glasses_.

“What are you wearing?” Draco asks, crossing the room to the sofa.

Harry turns when he speaks, and Draco wonders whether he would have noticed his presence if he hadn’t said anything. With the light hitting Harry’s lenses at this new angle, Draco can see his eyes, tired and unfocused.

“What are _you_ wearing?” Harry asks, and stares at Draco’s bare legs.

Draco sits beside him, his knee knocking against Harry’s thigh. “I meant these,” he says, tapping the side of Harry’s glasses.

“My glasses.”

“You never—”

“The contacts were irritating my eyes.”

“Contacts?”

“Contact lenses. They correct your vision, like glasses, but sit directly on your eyes instead. It’s a Muggle thing.”

“I know what contacts are.” Draco had freaked out a little bit the first time he saw one of the waitresses at the restaurant he worked at take one of hers out to reposition it; he thought her eyes were coming apart, which she found hilarious. He had assumed Harry had permanently corrected his vision somehow, whether with a magical procedure or a Muggle one. It’s strange to see him with the glasses on again. In one sense, he looks younger and more like his old self, but at the same time he seems harsher and farther away with this barrier in front of his eyes.

“I can leave them in for about a month at a time,” Harry explains, “before I have to put new ones in. I think I left those ones in too long.”

He swallows down the rest of the alcohol in his glass and stands to refill it. When he comes back, Draco takes the tumbler from his hand and takes a sip.

“Malfoy,” Harry says warningly.

Draco hands it back. “Malfoy, is it?”

Harry sits back down, slouching low. “Piss off.”

They sit in silence. Harry drinks, and Draco watches the fire.

“I’m sorry about what happened,” Draco says after a while.

“Wasn’t your fault.”

Draco knows that, but part of him still feels like it was. “I suppose it could have been worse.”

Harry shrugs; Draco is still looking at the fire, but their shoulders bump. “I was supposed to marry Ginny,” Harry says.

Draco doesn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t have anything to say to that. (Perhaps, _Yes, you were, and you still should_. Or, _You can’t; she doesn’t want to_. Or, _You can’t; you’re with me now_. And he can’t say _that_.)

“I _tried_ ,” Harry says, and he sounds so broken. “I do love her. I love her so much. I think I love her more than I ever did before, when I thought I really loved her.”

Draco feels hollow, sitting and staring at the fire and hearing this. He feels emptied. It doesn’t hurt; it’s more like his emotions have just been wrenched from him, all at once, and now he has to wait for new ones.

“But it’s like Ron love, or Hermione love. I—I’ve never wanted to fuck her _less_. She’s so beautiful and I fucking _loved_ fucking her and now it’s just—it’s gone. I don’t want to fuck her at all.”

Draco can’t breathe.

“It’s as if having James means it’s really—we’ll never be together like that. Any potential that was still there is _gone_. We’re family, and we will always be family and we will always love each other, but we will never be _in love_ and it’s… it’s strange to realise that. To know that for sure.”

Draco is frozen, unable to brave looking at Harry but no longer able to stare directly into the fire. He closes his eyes, and the flames dissolve into purple-blue blurs behind his eyelids.

“I want her to be happy.”

Draco takes slow, deep breaths. His arm touches Harry’s from shoulder to elbow, and he reaches blindly for Harry’s hand. He keeps his eyes closed as he asks, “What would make _you_ happy?”

Harry doesn’t answer.

—

The next morning, Harry doesn’t get out of bed. His presence is not required at the Ministry at all today, Draco gathers, so he showers and dresses alone. He left a spare set of robes in his locker at the Ministry for mornings like this. He puts on the same trousers he’s been wearing since Saturday and one of Harry’s shirts. He’ll have to go home to the Manor later, and if his mother catches him there she’ll insist he stay for dinner. He tries to prepare himself for the idea, but after Saturday, he thinks he may have to just pop into his room, pack a few changes of clothing, and come back here.

When he Floos to the Ministry, something feels _off_ , and it takes him until he’s in the lift to notice what’s different. Even though he’s alone, people are looking in his general direction today. Everyone stares at Harry and quite a few people will stare at Granger and Weasley, but no one ever looks at _Draco_. It doesn’t feel malicious, but he can’t help noticing that their eyes aren’t passing over him the way he’s grown accustomed to.

“Is everything all right?” Astoria asks as he comes out of the lift. She’s lingering in the hallway, seemingly waiting for him.

It’s a question he could easily just nod to, but he doesn’t actually know the answer. No, being caught in his pants on the kitchen table by Molly Weasley was not ideal, but he truly does think things are better now that it’s out in the open, so to speak. Harry talking about Ginny last night was hard, and clearly difficult for Harry as well, but they eventually went back to bed and slept through the remainder of the night, and Draco woke feeling optimistic.

“Yeah,” he says, “it’s all right.”

She seems concerned about him for the rest of the day, though, and asks oblique questions during their lunch break, and again in the lift on their way down to the Atrium before they go their separate ways. He doesn’t know what’s bothering her, but if it isn’t something she wants to discuss outright, Draco supposes there isn’t anything he can do about it.

He Apparates home, directly to his room, and turns to his wardrobe. And there’s his mother, sitting on his bed with her arms crossed.

“What are you doing in here?” he asks crossly.

“You haven’t been home in days, Draco,” she replies, matching his tone. “Where have you been?”

His go-to answer is usually at least partially true, but he didn’t see Astoria once all weekend, not until this morning. “I was only gone yesterday,” he answers weakly.

“You did not come home for two nights in a row,” Narcissa says. She is not the meek, worried woman he’s been dismissing for so long. Her voice is firm, demanding an answer.

“I have friends, Mother. I go out.”

“You disappeared for nearly forty-eight hours, and you _will_ give me an explanation.”

“Get out of my room, Mother.”

“I am not leaving until you tell me where you’ve been.”

The door opens suddenly, slamming against the wall with the force of it. Draco’s father stands in the doorway, visibly shaking with anger.

“Lucius, don’t,” Narcissa warns, but he already is stepping in from the hallway.

He has a newspaper crumpled in his fist, and he throws it at Draco. It hits his chest and falls limply to the floor. Draco, baffled, stands motionless, eyes darting from his father to the paper and back again. Lucius does not speak, but his glare tacitly demands that Draco read whatever has angered him so.

Draco picks up the paper and spreads it on his bed, smoothing the creases left by his father’s hand. His mother stands and steps away from both him and Lucius, giving space to whatever is going to happen.

It isn’t the Daily Prophet. Draco doesn’t understand at first; he knows his father reads the Prophet to keep up on the goings-on in the world outside Malfoy Manor, but he doesn’t read cheap gossip rags like this. No one he knows reads gossip rags like this, except perhaps Daphne Greengrass, much to his and Astoria’s amusement.

His own face looks back at him on the first page in grainy black and white. He isn’t doing anything out of the ordinary, only coming out of one of the fireplaces in the Ministry Atrium and walking toward the camera, but just to the left; whoever took the photo must have been in the queue for the lifts. He cannot process why this photo is associated with a front page story, and he has to read the large text beneath three times before he understands.

_Is Draco Malfoy on the Road to Redemption, Or Is There Something Sinister up His Sleeve?_

Underneath, with the main body of text, there is a smaller image of Draco at seventeen, his sleeve rolled up to reveal his Dark Mark. It was taken the day after the final battle at Hogwarts, after he and his parents were taken to the Ministry for questioning to determine whether or not they’d be prosecuted for war crimes. They were released to the Manor to await trial, which took nearly two months; they were not considered a high priority. Draco blinks uncomprehendingly at this picture, half expecting it to morph into something else.

The article, if it can be called an article, is a compilation of observations that have thus far gone without public comment. There are things that have already been photographed but not considered significant, like his lunches with Granger, Ginny, and various Weasleys, and his presence alongside the Golden Trio in the Atrium. There are things that have long been public knowledge, like his assistance from Arthur and Granger in his acceptance into the Auror program. But the ‘exposé’ also notes how frequently he and Harry arrive at the Ministry one after another, and it takes the step legitimate papers wouldn’t, drawing attention to the mysterious difference in Harry’s smile as he was looking at Draco.

On the second page, there is a series of photographs of him with Ginny, Granger, Arthur, Weasley, and Harry in various combinations. Each is captioned with wild speculation, and Draco can’t read another word.

“Where did you get this?” he asks evenly.

The article isn’t at all inflammatory; there is the insinuation that he is up to no good, but nothing is said outright, and it also posits that he may be a genuinely good person that other genuinely good people genuinely like. It shouldn’t hurt his chances with Robards, and while Peakes will be irritated that Draco has snaked his way in with the right people, he’ll also be pleased that someone has caught on to the idea that something _off_ is going on. And it helps that this is not at all a legitimate news source, and their calling attention to Draco will not actually cause many people to care.

“I know you don’t subscribe to this rag,” Draco says. “Who gave it to you?” He is suddenly reminded of seeing another issue in his mother’s sitting room. He turns to her, but she is looking at his father.

“Lucius—” she starts, but it’s too late.

“I am your father,” Lucius shouts, “and you are my son, and you _will_ explain to me exactly what you are doing with these people.”

“Oh, will I?” Draco matches his volume. “I don’t owe you _anything_. You’re pathe—”

“What are you doing with this filth?”

“‘Filth’? That’s rich, coming from you—”

“Draco, please—” Narcissa tries.

“Harry Potter saved my life,” Draco says, stepping toward his father. “He saved all of us. You’re a sad, middle-aged man who can’t so much as leave his house.”

“Oh, he _saved_ you,” Lucius spits. “What would _Harry Potter_ want with you?”

“That’s an interesting question, Father!” Draco can no longer control the pitch or volume of his voice. “An interesting question with a rather interesting answer—”

“Lucius, don’t, please—Draco—”

“I’m _fucking_ Harry Potter, Father.”

All other noise in the room comes to an abrupt halt.

“Or, pardon me, _being fucked by_ Harry Potter. At length, and with much enthusiasm, on a near-daily basis. Sometimes several times in a day! All over the place! In his sitting room, in public toilets, on the Weasley’s kitchen table—”

His mother starts crying, which only angers him more.

It seems to snap Lucius out of his shocked silence. “Whoring yourself out like a—”

“Yes, Father, I’m slutting it up with the hero of the Wizarding World. What do you think of that?”

“No son of mine—”

“I’m not _your son_ , Father. I’m a fully grown man and I am making something of myself. I am proud of what I’ve accomplished. And I’m ashamed of you.”

He takes another look at his father’s red, contorted face, and his mother’s, blotchy with tears, and Apparates away.

—

He takes himself to Harry’s sitting room. At first he doesn’t move, only stands right there in the middle of the room, feeling his anger ebb and waiting for his breathing to even out. He closes his eyes, focusing and trying to let his parents’ voices leave his head.

Harry isn’t there. Harry can feel when someone arrives, and he would have come in by now if he were home.

Draco could go to the Burrow—Harry might be there, and if he isn’t, Ginny definitely is. But he feels like a hug from Molly Weasley would break him right now, take him from holding it together to completely falling apart, so he sits on Harry’s sofa and waits for calm to settle in.

He isn’t aware of dozing off, but when he wakes, the clock above the mantel reads ten past eleven. He stays horizontal on the sofa, attempting to sort out his thoughts. He hasn’t eaten since 12:30, but the thought of food makes him feel ill. He’s still wearing the same trousers for the third day in a row. And Harry—Harry hasn’t come home, or he’d have woken Draco.

He can’t do anything about food without wanting to retch, and he can’t do anything about Harry. He can do something about his trousers.

He closes his eyes and concentrates on his bedroom. His parents aren’t in it anymore, he’s sure, and at this point they probably don’t expect him to come back tonight, so he can grab some clothes and come back here. It’s a step. It’s _something_ , and he can do it.

But as he tries to take himself there, nothing moves. The tight, spinning sensation of Apparition—it doesn’t happen. He stays right where he is, standing in front of Harry’s sofa. It feels like running into a wall, but inside his body. It feels awful.

His father has changed the wards, then. Draco cannot enter his family home.

So that’s how it is.

Harry comes home just past midnight, neither sober nor alone. Draco is in the kitchen downstairs, eating a sandwich in an effort to take care of himself, when he hears the front door open. Harry only uses the front door when he brings Muggles home. And Draco hears voices, Harry’s familiar one and a high-pitched, giggling female.

He can’t help going upstairs when he hears her laugh; his curiosity at Harry bringing a woman home beats his fear of what might happen.

Harry has that horrible, confident grin he wears when he pulls, and one of his hands is on the woman’s breasts while his other gropes her arse. The woman is pliant in his arms. Then she sees Draco, and she tenses up and shakes him off.

“You didn’t say anything about a three-way,” the woman says, eyeing Draco with a hint of revulsion. Draco knows his hair is mussed from falling asleep on the sofa, his third-day trousers are wrinkled, and his eyes are red after crying into his sandwich, but he can’t imagine his appearance truly warrants disgust from a Muggle tart willing to go home with one of Harry’s fake names.

“Don’t worry, Miss,” he says sweetly, “I have no interest in fucking you.”

“Why are you here?” Harry asks, his tone barely civil.

“What, is there a two-night limit?” Draco snaps.

“What’s going on here?” the woman asks. “You aren’t _gay_?”

“He’s not _gay_ ,” Draco answers, clearly implying the opposite.

“Go home,” Harry says. “You don’t live here.”

“I can’t.”

“Excuse me?” the woman says. “He told you to—”

“Kindly stop talking,” Draco says, cutting her off. “I—I tried,” he tells Harry. “I _can’t_.”

Harry stares blankly.

“What are you—” the woman starts.

“I fought with my parents,” Draco says. “There was something in one of the papers. We fought, and I left.”

“Well, I’m sure if you run on home, your mummy will make everything all better,” Harry mocks.

“That’s what I’m _saying_ ,” Draco says. “I tried to go home and I—” He glances at the woman, who is crossing her arms and looking very put out. “I physically _can’t_. They changed the—the locks.”

The woman raises her eyebrows and looks to Harry as though waiting for him to remove Draco from the foyer by force.

Harry turns to her. “You can leave.”

“What?”

“Here’s cab fare,” he says, taking a wad of cash from his pocket and pressing it to her palm. “Have a nice night.”

“Who even _is_ he?”

“He got here first,” Harry says with a vaguely apologetic shrug. He locks the door behind her. His expression is softer, just slightly, when he turns back to Draco. “What was in this paper?”

“Just…a series of insinuations, I suppose. About me, and all of you.”

“Baseless?”

Draco shakes his head. “It was only a gossip rag, I don’t know—Who’s Who or something like that. It connected all of the dots the Prophet hasn’t been connecting.”

Harry looks quizzical. “The Prophet?”

“Yeah, I’ve been in the pictures but they haven’t—”

“I don’t read the papers,” Harry says. “What pictures?”

“I’ve been in your photographs. The photographs they’re always taking of you, and Ginny, and Granger and Weasley—I’ve been in them, because I’ve been with you, but they haven’t _said_ anything about me, not until now, and—”

“What did they say?”

“Nothing outright, only suggestions, but—I told them, Harry. I told my parents.”

“Told them—?”

“I told them I’m—I’ve been sleeping with you.”

Harry stares blankly.

“I was so angry, and my father was so angry, and I came here but you were gone and then an hour ago I tried to go back because I’ve been wearing these trousers for three days but he—he changed the wards. I can’t get into the Manor anymore.”

Harry is quiet, staring at Draco with his brows knit together. After a few moments, he says, “So they know?”

“They won’t tell anyone. They’re horrified. They wouldn’t want anyone to know.”

“I guess it’s all coming out, then,” Harry says, voice remarkably calm. “All right.”

“All right?” Draco repeats, but Harry ignores him.

“You plan on sleeping here tonight?”

Draco nods.

Harry turns and starts for the stairs. The smell of cigarette smoke and what must be that woman’s perfume wafts off him as he walks past, and Draco has never needed a smoke more.

“Can I—do you have a fag?”

Harry hands him a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his back pocket. It’s the lighter Draco left here, that first time.

Harry goes upstairs and Draco goes out to the front stoop and has a smoke. It’s early December and Draco is only wearing a shirt and a pair of wool trousers, but Harry must have warming charms out front for this very purpose, as the cold doesn’t seem to touch him.

By the time he comes upstairs, Harry is in bed with the lights out. Draco strips down and gets under the covers beside him. Harry is still awake; Draco can tell by his breathing. He rolls onto his side, facing away from Draco.

Harry doesn’t get out of bed the next morning, either, but he does mumble something about Draco borrowing a pair of trousers. So Draco wears one of Harry’s shirts and a pair of Harry’s trousers. Both are a little loose, but once he puts his trainee robes on, no one can tell the difference. It feels like an incredibly stupid move, going out dressed entirely in Harry’s clothes just after rampant speculation as to his connection to Harry. But Harry is only ever seen in immaculate semi-formal robes these days, so it’s not as though anyone will be able to recognise his dark grey trousers and blue shirt.

But then, people who regularly see Harry as just Harry will be able to tell. Granger is able to tell, when she comes down to the second floor from the first just as the trainees are released for lunch. She starts toward Draco but stops halfway, staring at the grey trousers. “Are those—?”

Draco nods.

“I’ll just—I’ll go speak with Auror Harvey,” Astoria says, excusing herself and going back to the cubicles. She’s been talking about wanting to ask Auror Harvey for more information about tracking charms and sensors on specific spells, but Draco can tell she’s trying to give them privacy. He doesn’t understand why, at first, but then he notices the seriousness of Granger’s expression, and understands that she is readying herself to tell him something.

She takes him to one of the private rooms, used for interviews, questioning, and confidential meetings, with a nod of permission from Weasley. She sets a black leather satchel on the table between them, and Draco knows it must be important, but he cannot fathom why.

“Your mother just came to the first floor and demanded to speak with Harry Potter.”

Draco did not have any expectations at all, but he’s now sure this is the last thing he expected her to say. It doesn’t make any sense, not at all. “I didn’t think Harry was here today,” he says. It is the only part of the story he can begin to put in rational terms.

“We had a meeting at ten thirty,” Granger says. “Your mother came in halfway through. She gave this bag to Harry and said, rather cryptically, ‘Please take care of him.’ Everyone was very confused, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

“So am I,” Draco says after a moment. “And then she left?”

“And then she left. I think she wanted to avoid a scene,” Granger adds, thoughtful. “That was about the smallest, most secure audience she could have found at the Ministry, that’s for certain.”

“What’s in the bag?” Draco asks. He could open it himself, but.

“Some of your things. It’s expanded on the inside; I think at least half of your wardrobe is in there. Harry had to go, but he asked me to give it to you.”

Draco nods and picks up the bag. He isn’t ready to look at it, to see his life neatly packed away, but he slings the strap over his shoulder.

“Draco,” Granger starts, “did you…leave home?”

“Harry didn’t tell you?”

“Does Harry tell anyone anything?”

It seems harsh, after what happened Sunday, but Draco doesn’t comment on it. “Did you see the—”

“I saw. George showed it to Ginny and she Flooed me and Ron last night. Ron says it’s nothing,” she says, as though she thinks the opposite.

“My father thought it was something. And then, well, I told him it was something.”

Granger’s eyes widen. “You—?”

“I told him Harry and I are fucking.”

Granger’s head jerks back in surprise.

“And then I left, and when I tried to come back I found out he’d changed the wards, so—yes, I left home.”

She comes around the table and hugs him, which is a bit of a comfort but also quite awkward. “Let’s get you something to eat,” she says.

There’s only ten minutes left of his break now, but she takes him to Weasley’s empty cubicle and gives him the carton of hot soup sitting on his desk. Draco can only assume it’s meant to be Weasley’s lunch, but Granger insists he eat it and he really is very hungry, so he goes ahead and eats.

He spends the next two weeks with Harry. They don’t talk about it, but Harry makes it clear that this is not a permanent solution. It’s awkward and sometimes uncomfortable. Harry sometimes gets in strange, quiet moods and seems to want to be alone. Sometimes this ends in them sleeping on opposite sides of the bed or even in different rooms. Other times it ends in sex, and Draco can never predict the outcome.

Twice, Harry brings other people home and fucks them in other bedrooms. Draco lies awake in Harry’s bed trying not to hear the muffled noises. The first time, Draco doesn’t see Harry the next morning and showers, dresses, and leaves alone. The second time, Harry wakes him up with a blow job and then fucks him in the shower.

They have dinner at the Burrow most nights. There, Harry’s behaviour is largely unchanged, though he sometimes tenses when Molly implies that they are in a relationship. Once, she refers to Draco as “your young man” while Draco is in the other room. Ginny relays this to him, laughing, but Draco finds it much less funny when Harry won’t look at him afterwards. They have rough sex on the floor when they get back, and when they’re done, Harry gets up without a word and takes a long shower before drinking alone in the sitting room for the rest of the night.

The two weeks come to an end when Molly finds out that Draco is technically homeless. She yells at everyone present for not telling her (including Arthur, George, and Angelina, who didn’t know), and she’s still yelling as she insists that Draco come and stay in Percy’s old room. Draco is too intimidated to refuse. Ginny gleefully throws her arms around him, and once Molly has calmed down, she hugs him so tight he’s afraid he’ll bruise.

For whatever reason, Harry is more relaxed after that. He still doesn’t take well to labels of any kind on their _relationship_ , but the moody avoidance lessens. He takes Draco back to his after dinner sometimes, still, as well as going upstairs with him to Percy’s room. The first time, Draco is almost too conscious of their surroundings to go through with it, but it’s an easier adjustment than he expects, especially with a full floor between his bedroom and Molly and Arthur’s.

Harry also suggests that Draco try writing to Narcissa, one night as they’re lying in Harry’s bed between rounds. He avoids eye contact as he says it, staring up at the ceiling instead, and Draco knows he’s been thinking about it for a while. He knows he can’t say _thank you_ , but he holds Harry’s gaze as they fuck afterwards, and he thinks Harry understands him.

He and his mother begin writing daily. They avoid mentioning Lucius, for the most part, instead working on getting to know each other again. Draco tells her about training, about the Weasleys, about Harry (in vague terms, of course). He learns that while he’s been spending so much time with Harry and Ginny and their family, Narcissa has been getting reacquainted with her sister Andromeda, spending afternoons with Andromeda and her six-year-old grandson Teddy. He likes the idea of his mother getting out of the Manor and spending time with someone other than his father. He wonders if there’s hope for them as a family after all.

A week before Christmas, in the Weasley’s sitting room, Harry casually says, “Andromeda and Teddy are coming to mine for Christmas Eve.” Teddy is Harry’s godson, Draco has gathered, and Harry has mentioned him offhand a few times. Draco is pretty sure that Harry sees him regularly, whenever he isn’t busy having drugged-up sex or being the figurehead of the post-war Ministry, but Draco hasn’t met him yet.

“That should be nice,” Draco responds carefully. Molly and Arthur have assured him that he’s fully welcome at the Burrow for Christmas, but it will be his first time spending it without seeing either of his parents at all, and he can’t help feeling sad at that.

“Andromeda has asked if your mother could join us,” Harry continues, just as nonchalantly, “and would like me to extend the invitation to you, as well.”

Draco is so happy he is afraid of what might come out of his mouth if he speaks, so he kisses Harry enthusiastically in response, right there in front of everyone else. Harry doesn’t say anything more on the subject, but Draco doesn’t miss the slight flush that crosses his cheeks.

On Christmas Eve, his mother hugs him for a solid five minutes before saying a word, while Andromeda looks on in amusement and chats with Harry. Six-year-old Teddy is enthralled, and once Narcissa has released Draco, he wraps his arms around Draco’s legs with excitement. “I’m so glad to see you,” Narcissa says, Teddy between them. “I’m trying to… I want to sort things out with your father, Draco, but these things take time.”

“I know,” he says, and pats the top of Teddy’s purple-haired head.

Narcissa smiles, and it feels like things might be right again.

They eat in the dining room that Harry never uses (Draco only knows of its existence because they had sex on the far end of the table once), just the five of them at one end of the long table. Harry seems to have borrowed a house elf from Hogwarts for the occasion, though as with all good house elves, it remains unseen throughout the night.

After dinner, they move to the sitting room and exchange gifts. Ginny helped Draco select Teddy’s gift, a colouring book full of children from all over the world drawn in thick black lines. Draco doesn’t understood how fitting it is until Teddy opens it and immediately turns his hair bright white. He flips through the book with glee, exclaiming at all of the nose shapes and skin tones and eye colours he can try. Andromeda gives Draco an approving smile.

Harry didn’t get anything for Draco. Draco knew he wouldn’t, and so he didn’t get anything for Harry, either. It feels like more than enough to spend Christmas Eve with him, and wake up with him on Christmas morning.

Christmas at the Burrow is a much rowdier affair, and much more crowded. As an only child, he never imagined what a family this large would feel like. It’s overwhelming, if Draco is honest with himself, but thrilling all the same. Everyone treats him so warmly, as though he really does belong there. As though he really is one of them. Molly knitted jumpers for everyone. Draco recognises them; he remembers seeing the some of the Weasleys wear them back at Hogwarts. As she hands them to her children, one by one, and they put them on to appease her, Draco watches and smiles. Then Molly gives one to _him_ , a slate blue with a great big D on the front, and he feels so warm inside that he forgets for the moment that this life is only borrowed.

—

Life speeds up when January arrives. Draco has been looking forward to it for so long, to this last six-month stretch, that sometimes it doesn’t feel real. Ginny, too, is amazed that it’s all finally happening. Every night when she returns from Quidditch practice, she is nearly vibrating with excitement and full of stories from her day.

The trainees are now out in the field almost every day, rather than hanging back with the Aurors who have desk work to do. Who goes out is up to the Auror partners who bring them along. Some trainees are gone constantly; Peakes is a favourite to take out, since he’s known for his strong magic. Astoria is taken on several stake outs. Draco is the least popular pick. He anticipated it, but it still stings. Weasley and Adler are the only ones who ever choose him for the first two months, until Robards sends out a departmental notice that this is meant to be a _rotation_.

Draco worries that it is going to go wrong now, in the final months. He worries that he’s been deluding himself all along and now, right as the end approaches, it will all amount to nothing and he’ll have wasted three years of his life on an impossible hope.

“It isn’t guaranteed until we actually graduate from the program,” Draco tells Harry one night. “Some people make it all the way through but don’t graduate.” It could be for any number of reasons—bad reviews from the Aurors on fieldwork, lack of necessary improvement over time in weaker areas, subpar performance on the final practical exam. Draco still worries that they’ll find a way to reject him for his criminal history.

“You’ll graduate,” Harry says simply.

It doesn’t help that Peakes is doing well in all the ways that Draco isn’t. Much of this is left to chance; trainees are meant to only be in the field for very basic cases, and any excitement is entirely unplanned. It’s an accident that Harvey and Mathers underestimate their suspect and wind up bringing Peakes on a chase through Hogsmeade, but it gives Peakes something to brag about for weeks. Thankfully, fieldwork means the trainees see much less of each other, so Draco’s exposure to Peakes’ success is minimal.

Draco understands all of the theory, and he’s excelled in all training simulations. He can’t prove himself, though, when his only opportunities to put his training into practice are investigations into dark artefacts tip-offs that only lead to empty warehouses, completely legitimate businesses, and once, a hidden stash of enchanted umbrellas.

“This isn’t illegal,” Weasley tells the woman who gave the tip.

“They’re _exceedingly_ water-resistant!” the woman informs them.

Adler glares at her.

“I understand that fieldwork is a valuable experience,” Draco says to Astoria over lunch. It’s the first time they’ve been able to eat together in over a week, with the new lack of overlap in their schedules. “It feels a bit pointless, though, when I never actually _do_ anything.”

“I’ve been enjoying it,” Astoria says. “You should see if you can tag along for some stake outs or something. I know no one ever picks you, but honestly, most of them hate it and would be glad to pass off the waiting and watching to someone else. We could see if we could do one together, maybe. We always got the best ratings on stealth.”

“ _You_ always got the best ratings on stealth.” Astoria smiles winningly. “That would be nice, though. I feel like I never see you anymore.”

“That’s because you don’t,” Astoria says with a shrug. “Speaking of seeing, though—I’ve been seeing someone.”

“Oh?” Draco chokes a bit on his sandwich and has to sort that out before he can speak; Astoria watches his struggle in silent amusement. “Who?” he asks, voice slightly hoarse.

“This boy who’s friends with Theodore. His name is Archie and he’s in Healer training at St. Mungo’s.”

“How long have you been seeing him?”

Astoria shrugs. “A couple of months.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t said anything, that’s all.”

She shrugs again. “You aren’t really around enough to say anything _to_.”

Which hurts, a little. It isn’t Draco’s fault that their schedules don’t match up the same way anymore. Of course they see less of each other now that they aren’t stuck together with the same few people from nine to five every weekday. They don’t get a chance to say much of anything further, though, as they go their separate ways for the remainder of the afternoon. “Can I come by for dinner tonight?” Draco asks, wanting things to be how they used to be.

“Sure,” she says as she leaves.

Daphne cooks, which is new. She chatters on about how she’s trying to be more _domestic_ for when she starts her new life with Theodore. Apparently, they’re moving in together next month, which is also news to Draco.

“The new flat is _gorgeous_ ,” Daphne tells him excitedly as they eat. “It’s it gorgeous, honey?”

Theodore nods, stoic as ever. At least that hasn’t changed.

“Pansy’s moving into her room when she leaves,” Astoria tells Draco. “She’s just started as a receptionist at Daddy’s store, so it makes a lot of sense.”

“Pansy Parkinson?” Draco confirms. Astoria, Daphne, and Theodore all nod. Apparently Daphne and Pansy, best friends throughout their Hogwarts years, reconnected at some point last fall, which Draco supposes must be great for them. It’s strange, though, to hear about it after the fact like this. He hadn’t meant to stop coming round to their flat. He didn’t mean to get this out of touch with Astoria, or with any of them.

As he looks across the table at her, he realises she now represents his old life, and perhaps she has to him for a while, if unconsciously. He doesn’t know anything that’s going on with her at all, and as he thinks about everything that’s happened in the last few months, he realises she doesn’t know much of anything about what’s going on with him, either.

Daphne and Theodore disappear to Daphne’s room after dinner, while Astoria and Draco catch up in the sitting room. Astoria complains about Daphne a bit in a whisper, and how annoying her attempts at domesticity have been. (She tried to clean the bathroom last month with some charms and Astoria’s next shower turned her skin yellow.) She also complains about the marriage hints her parents have been dropping lately, now that Daphne’s June nuptials are approaching. Her mother won’t stop asking to meet Archie. “Which is annoying,” Astoria says, “since we haven’t been dating for very long and she’ll definitely send him running.”

“My mother is doing the same thing,” Draco commiserates. “I think the only way for her to wrap her mind around the Harry thing is if we are Very Serious about each other, which terrifies him, obviously, so I’ve been doing what I can to keep her away from him.” The last few times he’s seen her have been in Muggle London, actually; she finds the same comfort in anonymity there that he always has.

“So ‘the Harry thing’ is mother-sanctioned now, is it?”

“Oh, I think it has been for a while now, actually. She probably credits him for getting us speaking again. Christmas at Harry’s was the first time we saw each other in person after Lucius kicked me out,” he says.

“I thought you had Christmas with the Weasleys,” Astoria says, sounding oddly bitter.

“We had dinner at Harry’s on Christmas Eve. My Aunt Andromeda is raising Harry’s godson Teddy, actually, so—”

“It just seems strange that you never mentioned it.”

“It was a while ago, Astoria.”

“Exactly, Draco,” she says, eyes flaming. “It’s been nearly three months, and you haven’t seen fit to tell me that your mother fully supports you and your boyfriend.” She spits _boyfriend_ as though it’s a dirty word.

Draco is dumbstruck in the face of her sudden anger. “He isn’t my boyfriend.” It’s all he can manage to say.

“I use the term as shorthand for ‘man who has put his dick inside you several hundred times at this point.’ It rolls off the tongue a little more easily.”

Draco doesn’t understand where the venom is coming from. “What’s your problem with Harry?”

“Excuse me for not being thrilled that you’d rather have that prick fucking you than _ever_ spend time with me.”

“That’s not true! We’ve both been busy—”

“No, Draco, _you’ve_ been busy with your wonderful new life while I’ve had to sit around twiddling my thumbs. You know I can’t just _wait_ for you forever, Draco, and if you’re—”

“Wait for me?”

She goes silent.

“You don’t mean—”

She does.

“Astoria, I’m—I’m gay. I’m not—we’re not—”

“He’s awful to you,” she says, and her voice is shaking. “He treats you like a dirty little secret. Like you aren’t worth anything to him at all. He doesn’t even know you, Draco, not in any way that matters, and you don’t know anything about him either.”

Draco wants to contradict her, wants to tell her all the things she doesn’t know about Harry, about him and Harry. He wants to, but he has no idea where to start. Even more, he knows she doesn’t want to hear it.

“Do you know what Pansy’s been saying? She’s been saying that all you care about is being in with the _right_ people. You’ve found the right people and somehow convinced them you’re one of them and you’ve forgotten all about all of us. And I’ve been telling her she’s wrong, but—is she wrong, Draco?”

He can’t bring himself to say anything.

“We’re the same,” she says, and though her eyes are dry, her voice sounds like tears. “You aren’t any better than me. Maybe Harry Potter thinks you’re good for a fuck, but that’s _all_ you’re good for, so don’t go thinking you’re better than me. You’re still down here with the rest of us, trying to claw your way up.”

He wants her to scream or cry, or _something_ , anything other than this quiet, venomous calm.

“Get the fuck out of my flat,” she says. She goes to her bedroom, and she doesn’t slam the door behind her; she closes it so quietly that Draco barely hears the click.

—

It’s harder without Astoria. All of it. His dependence on her throughout training had become second nature, unconscious, and the days are slow torture without her. She’s still _there_ , of course, and she doesn’t ignore him. It’s worse; she is always extremely polite, the way she is with loose acquaintances.

He has lunches with Granger more often now. She doesn’t check up on him anymore, the way she used to; now, when she asks him how training is, it isn’t code for, ‘Who is giving you a hard time and what can I do about it?’ When he complains about the pointlessness of his fieldwork experiences so far, she laughs and says, “Don’t worry about it too much—the same thing happened to Ron. He says you’re doing quite well.”

Weasley seems to be warming up to him, though Draco would never know it from their interactions. He’s as short-tempered and visibly annoyed by Draco as ever, but then Draco will receive another compliment from him through Granger, and he wonders if Weasley isn’t as annoyed as he’d like everyone to think he is.

On the last Monday in March, Granger meets him for lunch at their usual cafe. She stopped coming to the second floor to meet him after the _exposé_ , for which Draco is thankful. Today, she greets him by setting an envelope on the table. “For you,” she says needlessly.

He opens it to find an invitation to the Sixth Annual Battle of Hogwarts Remembrance Ball. “Apparently someone ‘forgot’ to send it, so Ron gave it to me to hand-deliver.”

“I hadn’t realised it was already that time again.”

“You should actually come this year.”

He looks up from the couple dancing across the invitation. “Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

“You’re going to be an Auror in three months, Draco,” she says, stating the obvious as though this somehow changes the situation. When he clearly isn’t convinced, she continues, “You can’t let them bully you out of being a part of this. You belong there with us.”

He shrugs her off and pockets the invitation. He forgets about it entirely until Harry is taking off his trousers that night and the crumpled invitation falls to the floor. “What’s this?”

“It’s—the Remembrance Ball, it’s at the end of April.”

Harry scoffs. “You’re going to that?”

“I’ve never been,” Draco says, which isn’t really an answer.

“Neither have I.”

“You haven’t?”

“I haven’t.”

Draco wants more information, but Harry has his trousers off, so he gets a bit distracted from that goal and focuses on a different one, and by the time that one’s been achieved, he’s forgotten about the ball again.

He remembers when Granger asks again whether he’ll come, the next time they have lunch.

“Harry’s never been?”

Granger shakes his head. “It’s always the weekend before the anniversary,” she says. “And then we have the Memorial the day of, which Harry _does_ attend. He always delivers a speech.” She knows Draco’s never been to the Memorial, either.

“A speech you write,” he says.

“Yes, with Kingsley’s input. Harry edits it, cutting anything he doesn’t want to say. The first year it was very, very short.”

“So he does that, but not the ball?”

“Well,” Granger starts, “the ball is—well, it’s a very happy sort of occasion. Sort of remembering the lives of those we lost, rather than the fact that we lost them. And being thankful that we made it, and that those we lost didn’t die in vain. The Memorial, on the other hand—that’s the mourning part.”

“Mourning good, dancing bad?”

Granger shrugs. “Something like that.”

Ginny sighs when Draco brings it up that night, after dinner. “You can try to get him to go, if you want to labour fruitlessly for weeks on end.”

“That bad, is it?”

“He was so moody the last time I tried. For a whole month, I kid you not. But that was three years ago, so go ahead and give it a go if you want.”

Draco waits a week to bring it up. He’s afraid of what Harry might do—if he’ll get distant and closed-off again, or if he’ll get angry and lash out, or if he’ll simply dismiss Draco entirely. He isn’t sure which would be worse.

“I’m not sure whether I want to go to the Remembrance Ball,” he says as casually as he can manage. He just blew Harry, and he’s pretty sure there isn’t a better time to give this a try.

Harry grunts noncommittally.

“Why don’t you want to?” Draco tries.

“Never liked dancing.”

“I don’t think you have to dance.”

“Of course I don’t have to dance. I’m Harry Potter.”

It may be the closest thing to a joke Draco’s heard come out of his mouth while sober.

“Why do you care, anyway?” Harry asks. “What do you need me there for?”

Ginny feels the same way about it. “What do you need Harry for? Just come and have a good time.”

“I’d feel awkward alone,” Draco says. “It’s a pair thing, isn’t it? Your brother and Granger together, and George and Angelina, and Bill and Fleur, and Percy and—”

“Yes, all of my brothers are taking their wives,” she interrupts, “or near-wives, but that doesn’t mean it’s a _pair thing_. It just means they all have wives.”

“Everyone I’d know there would have a date.” He heard Astoria telling a couple of the other trainees that she’d be going with her boyfriend Archie, which shouldn’t have surprised him but sort of did anyway.

“Not true! I’m going stag, in fact. All right, technically I’m going with my dad—Mum’s staying home this year to watch the grandchildren—but he isn’t a _date_. You should come so we two sad, dateless losers can keep each other’s spirits up.”

“Wouldn’t that just make us each other’s dates?”

Ginny shrugs. “If you want to think of it that way, then sure.”

“I’ll think about it,” he says.

And he does, but no matter how he envisions it, the night seems wrong without Harry there. He can’t imagine celebrating Harry’s defeat of the Dark Lord without, well, _Harry_. But the next time brings it up to Harry, he rolls his eyes and tells him he ought to go with Ginny, which makes Draco laugh for a long time, and then Harry pushes him up against the wall and kisses him for a long time, and Draco doesn’t pursue the point any further.

—

If Draco hadn’t already decided to go, Peakes’ insistence he _not_ attend would have convinced him. Draco only glances at the poster in the hall, a large version of the illustration on the invitation, and Peakes _accidentally_ knocks into him with his shoulder.

“You’re not _going_ , are you, Death Eater?” He’s knocked Draco against the wall and stands in front of him, big and broad, keeping Draco right where he is. He has this down to a science; he keeps his hands off Draco and his wand stowed away, and if anyone comes into the hall, all he has to do is step away and they will be none the wiser.

 _Two more months_ , Draco tells himself. _Two more months and you’ll graduate and he won’t be able to touch you_.

“Yes, I’m going,” he says, voice even.

Peakes steps forward, almost close enough for their noses to touch. “Are you sure about that?”

“Should I give you some privacy?” asks a voice from somewhere beyond Peakes’ huge frame. “Are you having a moment?”

It’s Astoria, and Draco knows that Peakes will back off. She’s risen in his esteem now that her capability in the field has become apparent, and he now seems to group her in with the Aurors rather than with Draco.

“Just having a chat,” Peakes says, stepping back. He gives Draco one last threatening glare before heading for the lift.

Astoria gives Draco a small smile. “Are you coming, then?”

“What?” It’s the first time in over a month that she’s instigated conversation with him.

She nods in the direction of the poster. “Are you coming?”

“Yeah,” Draco says, stepping away from where Peakes had him against the wall. “Yeah, I think so.”

“You think so? Did you RSVP?”

“Granger did, before she even delivered my invitation,” he says with a laugh. “Sort of made the decision for me.” He didn’t feel obligated to go, even with that in mind; his final decision was made over curry with his mother only a few nights ago, as she urged him not to miss out on the experience if the only thing stopping him was other people telling him he doesn’t deserve it. It means more coming from his mother than from Granger, and she smiled so brightly when he said he’d go that he thinks it’ll be worth it, regardless of what happens.

“I’m going,” Astoria tells him, perhaps unaware he already knew (or perhaps to fill the silence).

“With Archie.”

Astoria shakes her head sheepishly. “We broke up, actually.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. I mean, I ended it with him, so it’s—it’s fine.”

It’s the end of the day, and everyone is starting to leave for the night. They pass Draco and Astoria on the way to the lift, and Draco wonders whether they should relocate, and whether they’ll be talking for much longer. He hopes so. He wants things to be good between them again.

“Are you going with anyone?”

Draco shakes his head. “Going alone, actually. Ginny is, too, though, so we’ll keep each other company, I guess. Not as dates, though.” They talked about it and Ginny concluded that she doesn’t want to subject him to the inevitable rumours that he’s James’s father, so she will stick to coming with Arthur.

“Harry isn’t coming?”

Draco shakes his head. “He’s never gone, actually. Doesn’t like dancing.”

She rolls her lips between her teeth and back, slowly. “I’m—I’m sorry about what I said. That time. You aren’t—”

He shakes his head. “It’s fine.”

“No, really, Draco, I’m—”

“It’s fine, Astoria. I was—I was shitty to you. I’m sorry, too.”

She attempts a smile, though it comes off as more of a grimace. “Are we—all right?”

“Yeah,” he says, trying a smile of his own, “we’re all right.”

She gives him a genuine smile now. “I’m so glad, truly. I’m so—”

He hugs her; he can’t stop himself. He missed her. He really missed her. He hears people walking past, but he’s too pleased to be bothered.

“Is it—” he starts after they separate. “Would it be strange for me to accompany you in Archie’s stead? Er, as friends?”

Astoria grins brilliantly. “No, that would be wonderful! Would Ginny mind?”

“She’s the most flexible person I know,” Draco says. “I don’t think she’ll mind at all.”

She doesn’t mind. “The more the merrier!” she says when Draco tells her during dinner an hour later. “She’s lovely, Astoria is. We’ll have fun.”

Harry doesn’t mind either. Or rather, he doesn’t care at all. He doesn’t say anything when Draco tells him, only licks Draco’s left nipple. In his defence, he was already in the middle of doing that.

“It’s this Saturday,” Draco adds. Harry doesn’t say anything to that either; his mouth is now just above Draco’s navel. It moves lower, and Draco stops hoping for a reaction. This is better, anyway.

The Yule Ball, back in fourth year, has been his only formal ball experience thus far, and he isn’t entirely sure what to expect. He thinks there will be food, he assumes there will be music, and he knows everyone will be in formal dress. His mother took him to get new robes tailored on Sunday, after he decided he’d go. Up until then he’d been planning on borrowing some of Harry’s and tailoring them himself if need be, but he appreciates the new ones. It feels more special this way, and more real, somehow.

Ginny’s robes are a beautiful green silk, and Molly has arranged her long curls in a loose but intricate crown. She looks unreal, and she flushes pink when Draco tells her so.

“And you only have eyes for Harry, so I know you really mean it,” she jokes, and kisses him on the cheek.

He Apparates to Astoria’s and is stunned at how dramatically different she looks. She normally dresses in neutrals and never wears makeup, and now her sky blue robes set off her colouring in ways he didn’t know were possible. “Daphne did my face,” she says uncertainly. “I’m convinced I’m going to smear something.”

“You’re beautiful,” he says. He’s never actually noticed the clear blue of her eyes before now.

“We sort of match,” she notes, eyeing his deep blue robes.

“Then it’s good we’re going together,” he says, smiling.

Daphne insists on taking a photo, for which Draco is secretly glad. He wants to be able to remember tonight. He’s filled with a strange, jittery excitement. It feels like tonight is the beginning of something new, like everything has come together and it’s time for his life to begin. He’ll be celebrating the outcome of the Battle of Hogwarts with the victors. He’ll be _one of them_. Hurdles will remain, but even so, this feels like the culmination of everything he’s been working toward for years.

He and Astoria emerge at the Apparition point and are immediately surrounded in a swirl of colours and lights. The Ministry ballroom is decked out in spring colours, and the guests comprise a veritable rainbow of dress robes. At first, the pair of them simply walk around the room, getting their bearings. Lights hover above them in layers, orbiting in slow circles about the room, and there are tables set for about a dozen each all along the perimeter of the room. Most are empty, as the guests flitter across the floor and greet one another, and there doesn’t seem to be any sort of assigned seating.

Eventually, they catch sight of Ginny waving to them from a half-empty table. They cross the room to her, and she greets them both with tight hugs. “Isn’t it just lovely? Here, I saved you both seats.”

He doesn’t recognise everyone who winds up at the table with them; there’s Granger, Weasley, Neville Longbottom, Luna Lovegood, Hannah Abbot, and another girl he thinks he remembers from Ravenclaw. Astoria knows her, at any rate. The rest are unknown to him, but smile across the table like he’s an old friend. He doesn’t see a single expression of animosity; not once, not from anyone.

Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt opens the evening with a brief word, reminding them of the events of May 2, 1997, of the people who gave their lives that day, and of everything they have been able to achieve in the wake of that victory. An award is given, which Draco gathers is a yearly occurrence; Minister Shacklebolt presents it to a small woman about ten years Draco’s senior who runs a home for Muggleborn children with unsupportive families. Draco can see why Harry doesn’t like this ball as a form of remembrance, but he can also see how celebration and moving forward are important parts of looking back.

After the initial formalities, people come and go from the tables freely. Trays of various dishes rotate at the centre of each table, coming forward and serving themselves to the guests at the raise of a hand, but there’s no requirement to eat at any particular time. After trying some of the offerings, Ginny drags Longbottom out to dance and insists Draco and Astoria come as well. They swap partners after a few songs, Draco dancing with Ginny and Astoria with Longbottom, and eventually Abbot comes to claim Longbottom, bringing Astoria back to Draco. He’s never seen her this energetic, this _bright_ , and he can’t stop smiling as he dances with her.

“I need to drink something,” she says loudly into his ear, over the music, just before the song ends. “Back to the table?”

They return, finding Granger sitting with Lovegood and eating some sort of pink cake. Draco sits in Weasley’s vacant chair, Astoria in Ginny’s on his other side.

“Aren’t you glad you came?” Granger asks with a broad grin.

Astoria drinks something fruity and bubbly and stays and talks to some of the others at the table when Ginny returns and pulls Draco back out onto the floor. Draco looks back at Astoria even while he dances with Ginny. She’s smiling her wide, toothy, genuine smile, not the polite one she uses with strangers. It makes Draco feel hopeful. They _are_ the same, they really are, and if Astoria can be this confident and happy, well, surely he can be, too.

When Draco comes back to the table (Ginny having disappeared with some old housemates), Astoria is deep in conversation, so he sits with Granger, who has grown a bit tipsy and spends a good amount of time letting him know how much she loves Weasley and how proud she is of him. Draco feels so very _fond_ of her in this moment, and he hopes that he can eventually pay her back, somehow, for everything she’s done for him.

He is only peripherally aware of the relative hush that comes over the room, as the hum of voices lulls for a moment. He wouldn’t give it a second thought if not for Astoria saying his name and giving him a pointed, urgent look while tilting her head to the left.

“Harry?” Granger says, while Draco is still looking at Astoria. “What is he—”

Draco turns, and he’s there. He’s really there.

The hum is returning, as whispers of Harry’s arrival travel throughout the room. It vaguely registers that the others at his own table are whispering about it as well, but Draco can’t focus on anything but Harry, standing there by the entrance and scanning the room. He’s the only one in the entire room wearing black, which Draco is sure won’t escape notice. What Draco can’t help lingering on, though, is his crooked collar. He’s quite sure Harry Potter hasn’t had a stitch of clothing out of place in years.

People seem unsure whether to flock to him or give him his space; most of those on the floor continue to dance as though nothing has changed. He seems to be talking, greeting the folks around him who are greeting him, but he doesn’t look at any of them; his eyes run across the room, searching.

Draco’s heart is pounding in his chest, and he’s smiling so hard it hurts.

Granger, still tipsy, only stares, as though attempting to process what she’s seeing. Draco is so full of surprise and excitement that he can’t quite remember how to move. It’s Astoria who finally does, standing and waving to Harry. He’s never met her and has no reason to understand who she is, but in a room full of people unsure whether they’re allowed to ask for his attention, her waving immediately catches his eye.

He sees Draco, and there’s a small, sheepish smile tugging at his lips. Draco stands, then, but doesn’t know whether he should move; Harry is already crossing the room to him. To _him_. Harry is crossing the room to him, right here in front of everyone. The press will go wild with this tomorrow, Draco knows. He’s sure that if he were to look away from Harry now he’d find the photographers who came to cover the ball already snapping away at this unexpected story. This should bother him, but—if Harry doesn’t mind, then Draco doesn’t mind either.

Harry _came_.

Harry is _here_.

Because Draco asked him to be.

He doesn’t care what the papers say tomorrow. He’s sure that for every redemption tale, there will be two convinced he has Harry Imperiused, but the public’s assumptions about him have never seemed more inconsequential. He has Astoria, and Ginny, and Granger. He has his mother; he has Molly and Arthur. Everyone else can think whatever they want to think.

“Hey,” Harry says.

“Hey,” Draco says back.

They look at each other for a long time. Draco wants to kiss him, wants to so, so badly, but even with his new dismissive attitude toward public opinion, that would be too much, too fast. He wants to tell Harry how much it means to him that he’s here, but he can’t begin to come up with the words to describe what he’s feeling. He can see all of what Harry’s feeling right there on his face anyway, and he’s sure his own expression is just as transparent.

Harry looks away first, turning to Astoria, who is watching them with open curiosity. “Astoria Greengrass?”

Astoria nods, eyes wide.

Harry holds out his hand. “Harry Potter. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

She grasps his hand tentatively. “Likewise?”

“You look lovely,” Harry says with a smile. A real, Harry smile.

Astoria meets Draco’s eyes and mouths, _I take it all back_.

Harry’s there for Draco; there isn’t any question of it. But so many of his friends are in attendance, and so many people want to thank him for what he did six years ago, that he can’t avoid them entirely. He squeezes Draco’s wrist once, quickly, before he steps away.

Astoria steps close and asks, “Didn’t you say he wasn’t coming?” Draco looks around, unsure whether he should say anything. “Don’t look secretive!” she says quickly. “We’re Silenced. If you act normal, everyone will just assume we’re speaking too quietly.”

“Oh.” He forgets that she can do these things so easily. “Yes, I said he wasn’t coming because _he_ said he wasn’t coming, but then he came anyway, and—”

“Because you asked him to?”

Draco nods.

“But without telling you beforehand.”

Draco nods again.

Astoria laughs. “I don’t think I can even begin to understand how you two work,” she says, “but I think—there’s a small chance—he just might like you. A little bit. Maybe.”

Draco wonders whether his smile is permanent.

“Do you want to be alone?” she asks.

“Merlin, yes. I want to snog him until neither of us can breathe and then snog him some more. I mean, it’ll have to wait until later, though. When this is all over and we go home.”

“Or it could happen now?” She laughs at his undoubtedly ridiculous quizzical expression. “I could get the attention off Harry so you can sneak off to some hallway and debauch yourselves right here.”

“And the sorting hat at didn’t put you in Slytherin,” Draco says, shaking his head. “You want me to go make out with Harry in a hallway?”

“Find a nice corner and put up some privacy charms and you’re golden,” she says. “Or you could wait the three or four hours it would take before you could get back to his place—”

“No, here,” he says, looking over to where Harry stands with Longbottom and Dean Thomas, in his black dress robes with the collar crooked. “Astoria—I love him. I really fucking love him.”

“I know,” she says, and kisses him on the cheek. “I know.”

Draco leaves the ballroom, heading down the long hall that Granger tells him leads to the toilets. Astoria goes to tell Harry the plan and cast the spell to hide him. Draco conceals himself once he’s in the hall. It’s a handy spell that doesn’t so much render the user invisible as deflect attention from them unless they choose to reveal themselves. It’s difficult, and he can’t perform it nearly as well as Astoria can, but far more people are paying attention to Harry than to him.

Harry reveals himself the way Astoria told him to, by tapping twice on the wall next to the door to the women’s toilet, and Draco follows suit. “Oh,” Harry says as he suddenly notices Draco.

Draco is already smiling—he can’t stop smiling—but it feels like it gets even bigger. “Come on.”

He takes Harry by the hand and leads him to the end of the hall, and immediately as they come to a stop, Harry backs him up against the wall and kisses him thoroughly. Draco starts to pull away but forgets why he wanted to, and it isn’t until Harry has to go up for air that Draco remembers, and quickly puts the privacy spells in place.

“You look fucking edible,” Harry says, and runs his hands down Draco’s sides to his arse, feeling the fabric of his robes. “Where’d you get these?”

“Mother got them for me last weekend,” he says into the side of Harry’s mouth. “You don’t look too bad yourself.”

“It’s funeral garb,” Harry says, laughing, between kisses.

“You still look hot in it.” Draco means to kiss him again, but he opens his eyes and sees Harry already looking at him, and he holds still for a moment, returning his gaze. He is overwhelmed by so much _feeling_ , and he needs Harry to know, but he doesn’t know where to start. He traces his thumb down Harry’s cheek, fingers splayed down the side of Harry’s neck. “Thank you,” he whispers.

Harry leans in and nudges Draco’s nose with his own. Their breath mingles between them. Draco closes his eyes, and he can feel Harry’s pulse beneath his fingers, his own heartbeat racing in his chest. Harry brushes his lips across Draco’s very softly and begins to press gentle kisses to the corners of his mouth, to his chin, to his nose, along his jaw and cheekbones. He kisses Draco’s forehead, and down the bridge of his nose to his mouth again.

Draco cups Harry’s face and keeps him there, kissing him over and over. It’s slow and exploratory in a way that usually only ever happens after sex, as they take their time and have no goal in mind. Draco could do this for hours, _will_ do this for hours if Harry lets him. One hand moves to stroke the hair at the nape of Harry’s neck, while the other traces over his throat and chest. Harry’s hands move over Draco’s back and shoulders, holding him close.

When Harry breaks the kiss, he stays just as close, leaning his forehead against Draco’s. “Do you remember,” he asks, his voice low and rough, “when Molly came home while we were—”

“Yeah,” Draco whispers, “I remember.”

“Do you remember when we went home after?”

“And finally got to fuck, almost ten hours after the initial interruption?”

“After that,” Harry prompts, “in the sitting room.”

Draco can still see the fire glinting off Harry’s glasses. “Yeah.”

“You asked me what would make me happy.”

Draco’s breath catches.

Harry’s hand smooths over Draco’s shoulder, up his neck, and he traces Draco’s cheek with his thumb. “You’re it, Draco.”

Something unhooks inside him. Something releases. Draco is looking into Harry’s green, green eyes, and something is shifting, correcting. He kisses Harry hard, again and again, until it melts into more of that languorous exploration. His chest feels full, even fit to burst, and he can’t believe how lucky he is. He can’t believe he gets to live this life.

His hands start to wander, trying to creep under Harry’s robes, and Harry steps away slightly, though still within kissing range. “Later,” he says.

“What?” Draco asks, dazed.

“We’ll get to that,” Harry says, “but later. Just…come to mine when you’re done here, yeah?”

Draco pulls Harry in for another series of kisses. Then, “You’re leaving?”

Harry nods, and gives him another quick kiss. “I think I’ve had my fill of all of the excitement.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No, stay,” he insists. “Enjoy the rest of the night with everyone. It’ll only be another hour or so.” He runs his fingers over Draco’s hair, tucking a bit behind his ear. “I’ll be there when you’re done. I’m not—I’m not going anywhere.”

Draco kisses him again.

They have several more last kisses before Draco really starts back for the ballroom. “Come on,” Harry finally says, “don’t you think Astoria’s been missing her date for long enough?”

“It was her idea,” Draco points out, but takes a couple of steps.

Harry steps after him and kisses him; the actual last one. “Later,” he says, the beginnings of a smile playing about his lips.

“Later,” Draco echoes.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been gone, but he wants to make his excuses and join Harry at home as quickly as possible. Astoria will be fine without him. He’ll promise to fill her in on the details tomorrow, and then he’ll go. He’ll go to Harry, who isn’t going anywhere. Harry, who Draco can make happy. Harry, who he loves more than anything. Draco wonders whether it’s too soon to tell him so.

“Draco,” he hears, and he starts to turn.

There’s a bright flash of light, and someone is screaming—

Then everything is heavy and dark.


	3. Coming and Staying

Draco wakes up to the sound of humming.

It isn’t a tune he recognises, but it’s upbeat, and it makes him want to sit upright and join in. He can’t. He finds he can’t move much at all, except to part his lips a bit and start to squint as he tries to open his eyes. There isn’t anything holding him down or restricting his movement—he simply can’t seem to muster up the energy for it. He tries to turn his head towards the humming, but the effort is draining, and he settles for focusing on the eye-opening thing. He’s thankful for the impediment when the light starts to hit his pupils between his eyelashes; it’s harshly bright, and all of it at once would likely be too much. As his lids slowly comply, the light comes in bit by bit.

He can’t make anything out at first, only a lot of white. Then he realises he’s looking at the ceiling, and he would have to turn his head to see anything else.

The woman—he knows it’s a woman—is still humming, and the sound is getting further away.

Draco pulls every last bit of energy he can manage, feeling as though he’s sucking all of it from his edges to his core, and groans. Without help from his mouth, he can’t form words, but he hopes the sound will be enough to keep the woman from leaving. It doesn’t _hurt_. He isn’t in pain, only a state of utter fatigue. But even this small groan, far quieter than how loud he felt it should have been, takes so much out of him that he can’t help closing his eyes again, needing the warm, dark comfort of sleep.

It takes a moment for them to close, and in that moment he sees the woman above him, looking down with a confusing mix of excitement and concern. For a second she looks like a warped version of his mother, with larger eyes, a narrower jaw, and all of Narcissa’s neat precision ripped away. Then she is a dark blur, and then only her voice, softly saying his name.

—

The second time Draco wakes up, a pair of blue eyes stare down at him. He thinks they are Astoria’s, and he thinks he is dreaming.

“Draco?”

The voice is familiar, and not only because it is the same voice he heard when he last woke. He can’t place it at first, and as the face around the eyes comes into focus, he can’t initially place it either.

“Draco,” she says again, no longer a question as she looks down into his fully open eyes. “Draco, I know you feel very tired. Don’t try to move, or speak, unless you feel you absolutely must.”

He gives her a slow blink, the only acknowledgement he can manage.

“You were hurt, Draco, but you’re safe now, and recovering well. It’s very good that you’ve woken up. It is going to take some time for your energy to return, but now that you’re awake, we can work on doing everything we can to facilitate that process.”

He blinks again, hoping she understands that he understands.

“You’ve been asleep for almost two months, Draco. Your friends have been very worried about you. How would you feel about seeing them?”

Draco blinks as affirmatively as he can.

“I’ll let them know you’re awake,” she says with a warm smile.

She turns, starting to walk away. Draco needs her to stop; he needs her to explain _why_ he has slept so long, _why_ he feels so tired.

“Wait,” he says. His voice is very quiet and very hoarse, but she hears him.

“Draco?”

“What happened?” he asks, even more quietly, but as she returns to his bedside, sleep is already overtaking him.

—

He doesn’t know how long it is before he next wakes—an hour, or days. But when he opens his eyes again, his mother and Astoria are there, sitting in a pair of chairs pulled up next to his bed. They have been talking to each other, but now their attention immediately turns to him.

“Luna,” Narcissa calls, “he’s awake!”

Luna Lovegood—the woman who was here before, both times.

He hears her approach. “Would you like to sit up, Draco?”

He blinks, and she helps him into a seated position, supporting his back with several pillows.  
“We know you’re very tired,” Astoria says gently, “and we know you can’t exert yourself too much. We can go whenever you need us to.” He blinks, and she smiles a bit sadly.

“Draco, do you want to know what happened?” his mother asks.

He blinks again.

The three women exchange glances, all looking very serious. The consensus seems to be that Lovegood will start, but it takes her a moment, as if she has to find her words.

“The spell that hit you was a defensive spell designed to temporarily incapacitate an assailant,” she begins. “ _Sedare_. It restrains magical and physical energy. I’m sure you know it from your training. I am also sure you know that its effects typically only last minutes, hours at most. What hit you was magnified in a way that no one has ever seen before, and at first we were afraid that its effects would be permanent. Your energy, as you are no doubt aware, continues to be at extremely low levels, but it has been increasing since you first woke up, and I’m optimistic that with a combination of magical and physical therapy you will be able to make a full recovery.”

They sit in silence as they let Draco process this information. His mother looks as if she might cry. She looks as if she has cried often, for a while.

After a minute, Astoria can no longer contain herself. “It was Peakes,” she says quietly. “Peakes cursed you.” She laughs humourlessly. “Except he didn’t _curse_ you, so he’s gotten away with it.”

“The trial was two weeks ago,” Narcissa says.

“Hermione tried to convince them it was an attack, but he claimed self-defence and won,” Astoria says bitterly. “They let him graduate. He attacked you, and now he’s an Auror.”

They stay a while longer, but the mood is so solemn it’s overwhelming, and eventually Draco closes his eyes. Narcissa and Astoria each kiss him on the cheek before leaving. He doesn’t go back to sleep, though. He goes over what Lovegood and Astoria told him, over and over.

Peakes did it. He found a way to take Draco out of the picture without a single consequence to himself. Graduation has come and gone, and Draco is not an Auror. He is in hospital and, regardless of Lovegood’s optimism, may never be able to perform magic again. Or walk, or fuck, or feed himself, or even have a conversation at normal speed and volume.

He was always afraid that the world that had started to accept him would turn on him, would change its mind and decide he wasn’t actually good enough after all. He didn’t think one person could do it. He didn’t know that a single person’s hatred of him would be enough to remove him. He didn’t know the Wizarding World’s apathy toward him stretched far enough to allow this to happen. In his nightmares, everyone would band together against him in a raging mob and remove him by force.

This feels worse.

Granger and Ginny come a few hours later. It seems Lovegood has spoken to them, as neither brings up what’s happened. They only mention it indirectly, saying they’re glad to see him finally awake. Instead, they turn the conversation to what he’s missed in the past two months. He learns that the Harpies have been doing well so far in the season, that Granger and Weasley have decided on a September wedding, that George and Angelina are expecting their second child while Percy and Audrey are expecting their first.

He learns that Harry hasn’t come to see him once.

He has to ask. Neither of them mentions Harry, even as they detail the lives of everyone else they know, so eventually Draco forces out a hoarse, “Harry?”

“He’s been busy,” Ginny says generously, though she still sounds a little angry about it. Granger looks furious. Draco knows there’s something they aren’t saying, but he doesn’t have the energy to ask, and he is afraid of what they might tell him.

When they leave, Draco falls asleep, and he next opens his eyes eighteen hours later.

There is a week of this, of near-constant sleep interrupted by brief visits full of pitying looks. Visits that only serve to exhaust him, sending him back into hours of sleep. He reaches the point of being able to carry on a conversation, but movement is still difficult, and he is still unable to feed himself. Everyone that visits looks at him like a broken thing.

On the eighth day, Astoria comes for the third time. When Lovegood ushers her out after only ten minutes, telling her he needs his rest, Draco reaches his limit.

“Please,” he says, slowly and carefully, “I want to go home.”

“I can Floo your mother. She’ll have you settled at home by supper.”

“Not the Manor.”

“Your mother has requested that you be released to her care, once the hospital sees fit to release you. I don’t think you’re ready to go, but if you don’t want to be here, you can go home as long as you return for therapy.”

He knows she doesn’t say it, knows she probably didn’t even think it, but all Draco hears is that he is no longer wanted at the Burrow. Molly and Arthur didn’t mind having him around when he was on his way to becoming a productive member of society, but he’s broken now. He no longer has anything to offer. His mother is the only one who will take him.

Lovegood is giving him her intense stare, he can feel it. He doesn’t want to see it.

“Do you want me to Floo your mother?” she asks.

“Just let me leave. I don’t need help.”

“Yes, Draco, you _do_ need help. As the Healer responsible for your return to health, I cannot allow you to make yourself ill by refusing necessary assistance. Ideally, you will remain in this hospital until you are fully recovered, but if you wish to leave, you _must_ be with a caretaker of some sort, and you will return here every day for physical and magical therapy.”

She pauses for acknowledgement, but he is silent.

“Do you understand me?”

He nods.

“Do you want to go home?”

“No.”

He tries to focus on recovery. Most of his time is spent alone or with only Lovegood, as she works with him on exercises meant to help him start moving again. She’s referred to magical therapy many times, but for the moment everything they do targets only his physical energy. She doesn’t say anything about it, but he can’t help assuming she doesn’t think he’s ready to work on magic yet. He tries not to let it bother him.

Even outside of their exercises, he does what he can. He starts to feel noticeable shifts in his energy and tries to figure out what helps and what hurts. Now that talking is less difficult, conversation actually seems to increase his vitality, particularly with Ginny and Astoria. Eating—or rather, drinking the liquid meals that Lovegood provides, through a straw—drains him, as his body works to digest and absorb the nutrients. Movement drains him the most, but it’s also the most helpful for his physical improvement. He tries to do his exercises after visits, when his strength is up.

It’s difficult, though, to want to recover when there doesn’t appear to be anything to recover _for_. No one says it explicitly, but it’s clear that being an Auror is not an option anymore, not until ( _unless_ ) he fully recovers. Even what Lovegood would consider to be full recovery would not be enough to be an Auror, which requires fast reaction time, strong magic, and a level of physical strength.

Privately, he motivates himself with the thought of seeing Harry. If Harry won’t come to him, well, Draco will just have to go find him.

—

It’s another week before he learns anything more about what happened. About his _attack_. Lovegood does not seem to have any intention of giving him any more information; her only involvement is helping him recover from the spell itself. Ginny seems to understand that talking to her brings his spirits up, and so she avoids any discussion of it. His mother is too sad to talk about it, and Astoria too angry.

Granger, though—Granger doesn’t want to avoid it. She comes in one day in the late afternoon, pulls a chair up beside his bed, and says, “You should know.”

“What?”

“You deserve to know how it happened. It’s so bloody stupid that everyone is trying to protect you from it. Keeping things from you doesn’t protect you from anything.”

He can tell she has been wanting to say this for a while, perhaps since her first visit. “All right, then tell me.”

“What do you remember?”

He’s been thinking about this a lot, in all the time he’s been alone and too tired to move. After two months of sleep, reality seemed further away. Memories and dreams were all mixed up in his head, and it’s only through these visits and conversations with others that he’s been able to more firmly grasp hold of what is real. He thinks his recollection of that night has been tainted by good dreams and nightmares alike, but there is still one thing he’s sure of.

“Harry,” he says.

“Do you remember anything more specific?”

“He came. He came late, but he came for me. We—we went to be alone.” _He said I could make him happy_.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I was going back, and he was leaving. I was going to say goodbye to Astoria and then leave too.”

Granger nods. “And they’ve told you who did it.”

“Peakes.”

A sardonic smirk crosses her features briefly. “Ron was furious. _Is_ furious. He refused to attend the graduation ceremony.”

Weasley has visited only once, with Granger, Ginny, and George. He didn’t say much of anything and didn’t express any concern for Draco’s well-being; mostly, he sat in the corner while the other three chatted away. Draco can’t help feeling pleased to learn that he does in fact care, at least a little.

“We only had Peakes’ statement to go on, as far as what happened that night. Harry gave his statement to Ron but refused to allow it to be used in the trial. It was a private trial, at Harry’s own insistence, so what he said would have remained confidential anyway, but he didn’t want it used.” She pauses before adding, “He gave it to me, though, to help with my arguments.”

It’s an oblique way of letting him know she knows what happened between them, and he wonders if it’s part of why she is so angry with Harry for not coming to see him.

“The only thing Harry allowed me to say was that he was alone with you of his own volition and he neither felt threatened nor believed you to pose a threat to anyone else. He would not explain, outside of his statement, why he was alone with you or even why he was present that night in the first place, considering that he is normally conspicuously absent. The defence used that to their advantage.”

Another reason to be furious with Harry.

“The trial took two days of several hours each. Harry was there both days but refused to speak at all, and when the verdict was reached, he got up and left. As I said, it was a private trial, so aside from the Wizengamot, witnesses, the defence, and myself, the only people in attendance were Harry, Ginny, and your mother. Astoria spoke as a witness, but the cross-examination from the defence really shook her, and Robards spoke in Peakes’ favour, which outweighed her testimony almost entirely. I tried to include Molly as a witness, but the defence convinced the Wizengamot that her testimony was not pertinent and had it thrown out.”

Her voice is even and detached as she speaks, completely emotionally disengaged. It’s almost relaxing in rhythm, even as she tells him things that do not relax him at all. He can tell she is giving him these details as filler as she gears up toward talking about what actually happened that night, but he doesn’t rush her.

“Ginny volunteered to testify as well,” Granger adds. “They wouldn’t allow it for the same reason they didn’t allow Molly. They tried to make her leave repeatedly, during the trial, because she kept making disruptive comments, particularly during Robards’ testimony. When they read the verdict, she had to be physically restrained because she immediately launched herself at Peakes.”

Draco can picture it clearly, and he can’t help smiling. It seems to encourage Granger, who takes a deep breath and begins to reconstruct the night of the ball.

“Peakes admitted that he had his eye on you the whole night. He kept his distance, but he was sure that you had some sort of ill intent and were potentially dangerous, which meant, naturally, that it was his duty to make sure you didn’t get away with whatever you were planning to do. When Harry Potter showed up and immediately came to you, Peakes _knew_ you were going to do something. He saw you talk with Harry and with Astoria, and he saw you leave and saw Astoria talk with Harry. He was more concerned with you than with Harry, and he followed you. Astoria testified that you used a stealth charm on yourself and she cast the same one on Harry at his request. Peakes, incidentally, used the same charm as well.

“While I couldn’t use Harry’s explanation of why he left the room and went to be alone with you in the hallway, Astoria said Harry was overwhelmed by the attention focused on him and wanted to speak with you in private. Knowing her competence with stealth and privacy charms, he asked her to conceal him so that he could get away from the others and be with you. She stated under Veritaserum that she did not know what he intended to say to you, which I know to be false—and she was only able to say it through careful stating of the truth—but it protected you and Harry.

“The defence, though, twisted it to mean that if she had no knowledge of either of your intentions, there was no way of knowing that they were indeed innocent. Peakes firmly believed you were up to no good, and believed this fear to be legitimate, and that on its own is a strong enough case for self-defence. With the addition of ambiguity as to your actual intent, his case was even stronger.

“So, believing you to running off to commit some heinous crime, he charmed himself unnoticeable and followed you out in time to see you performing the same charm on yourself, which only confirmed his suspicions. Because he was watching you as you cast it and very determined to continue watching you, the charm had no effect on him. He saw you waiting for Harry, he saw Harry join you, and he saw you lead Harry to the end of the hall.”

Draco feels his face burn with shame. They should have been more careful. They shouldn’t have done it at all; they should have waited until afterwards, in the safety of Harry’s home. They should have known there would be consequences. As Granger describes the sequence of events, the details come back to Draco, and he cringes in anticipation of what she’ll say next.

“He testified that he wasn’t sure what happened next. He couldn’t tell whether you were conversing or fighting or what, but Harry pushed you up against a wall, and shortly afterwards you disappeared from sight. He was afraid you’d Apparated and he’d failed, but because you were already using a stealth charm, he thought it likely that you were still there, but concealed. So he waited. Eventually, you did come back into view, but Harry didn’t. You were clearly returning to the ballroom and had clearly done something to Harry Potter, and he firmly believed your plan did not stop there. He had to stop you, so he performed the Sedative Spell, solely to restrain you from doing whatever evil thing you were planning to do.”

“ _Sedare_ doesn’t do this,” Draco says, interrupting for the first time. “He did something to it, something to strengthen it this much, and it wasn’t an accident.”

“Astoria said that,” Granger says, frowning. “She testified that Peakes has been giving you a hard time for three years and was looking for an excuse to attack you. She suggested that he’d already concocted a way to increase the spell’s potency and had only been waiting for the right moment to use it.” Granger takes a deep breath, and continues, “I believe she is correct. Robards, however, testified that Peakes is known for his strong magic, particularly when it comes to duelling and defensive magic, and in the cross-examination Astoria admitted the same. The defence managed to convince everyone that an accidental, panic-driven overflow of magic was just as likely, or even _more_ likely, than intentional magnification.”

She presses her lips tightly together for a moment, as though readying herself to speak. “That’s the last thing Peakes remembers. He was knocked out, he guessed by a stunning spell from someone working with you. He suggested Astoria, actually, but there is no question that she was in the ballroom the entire time. He was awoken by Ron’s partner about twenty minutes later, while Ron attempted to talk to Harry. Harry was—he was practically catatonic. He wouldn’t respond, wouldn’t get up from where he was kneeling next to you, and he was crying.”

Harry was there.

Harry was there when it happened.

Draco had assumed he’d already Apparated home. It was the only version of things that made sense to him; he was sure that if Harry had been there, he would have been able to stop it. But Harry _was_ there, and Harry didn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop it.

Harry saw it happen and couldn’t do anything to help him.

“It was a surge of unconscious, highly emotional magic,” Granger says. “Harry has no recollection of stunning Peakes. He doesn’t remember much of anything, only seeing you fall, and the bright light of the magnified spell.”

“He was screaming,” Draco says. “That’s the last thing I remember. Harry was screaming.”

Granger stares fixedly at a wrinkle in Draco’s bed sheets. She looks as though she might cry.

“Granger? How is he?”

She blinks hard and breathes in deeply through her nose.

“Hermione,” Draco says.

“He wouldn’t leave you. For three days, he stayed in your room here. A different one at first, with several beds, but they felt his presence disturbed the others and moved you into this private one. The Healers tried to make him leave and he wouldn’t. He didn’t go home at all, not even to change out of those funeral robes, and Ginny and Luna had to force him to eat. Luna said he threw up most of it. But he wouldn’t go home, not until they stabilised you. Not until they knew you’d live.

“The Memorial at Hogwarts was a few days later. He came in the same robes and read his speech, and then he left. He made his necessary appearances at the Ministry and acted like—well, he acted like Harry Potter. But he stopped coming to dinner at the Burrow, and we’ve barely—we’ve all barely seen him. The trial was the last time I was in the same room with him for more than a few minutes, and he hasn’t come to the Ministry since.”

“Does he know I’m awake?”

She nods.

“I have to see him.”

“He won’t come.” She purses her lips for a moment. “But you could talk to Ginny about it, next time. She and Jamie—they moved into Grimmauld Place. She was afraid of Harry being alone, and she’s been wanting to get out of the Burrow anyway, so it seemed to make sense. Maybe she can talk to him for you.”

Draco nods, and Granger nods. She has to leave and meet Weasley for dinner, and Lovegood comes in to give Draco his own liquified dinner. Granger hugs him goodbye, though he’s too weak to return it. He feels weaker than ever, and when Lovegood tries to do exercises with him after his meal, he can’t manage any of them.

—

It’s an accident that changes things. Draco does not want to be in a private room at St. Mungo’s, but when the only other option is living at the Manor with his mother as his caretaker, he figures it’s the lesser evil. Lovegood is rather pleasant to be around, at any rate; sometimes her constant staring and observing unnerves him, but she is a generally relaxing presence. At first, he finds it a bit odd that she is the only person who ever checks on him. As far as he knows, St. Mungo’s hospital is heavily staffed, and all sorts of Healers and Mediwitches look after the patients. A single Healer assigned to a patient, with no other assistance, seems unusual, as does the idea of a Healer with only one patient. He can’t imagine Lovegood has time for anyone else, not with his meals and his visits and his exercise and her constant observation of his energy levels. She’s even come when he suddenly needs her at night; there’s a button for him to press, and she Apparates from home immediately to see to him.

“I’ve been doing research on magical energy,” she explains when he asks. “Its depletion and renewal and all of the factors that influence it. I asked to be assigned to you both to further my research and because I do not think anyone else is at all qualified to help you.”

As with Granger’s help in his acceptance to Auror training, it feels a little strange to be Lovegood’s _project_ , but he appreciates her help all the same.

But one day, when he’s been awake for about six weeks, someone other than Lovegood comes in to give him his lunch. It’s a boy about Astoria’s age, probably in training. He looks perfectly nice, with a small, unthreatening build, sandy hair, and a warm, patient-greeting smile.

None of this registers with Draco. The door opens and the boy steps in, and suddenly Draco can’t breathe. He feels like all of the air is yanked from his lungs, and he is gasping for it but it’s gone, and he can feel his energy draining as he tries to force his lungs to work. He can’t breathe, and he _knows_ if he calms down it will work again but he can’t calm down because he can feel himself slipping—

He doesn’t know what happens, but Lovegood is suddenly over him, speaking to him slowly and calmly, and his breath is coming in and out with no obstacle. The door is shut, and the boy is gone.

“You’re all right, Draco, you’re all right,” she is telling him, and Draco shakes his head, trying to sit up properly. He knows he’s all right. He always knows he’s all right; it’s only while it’s happening that it scares him.

It’s been so long since that has happened, and the last few times he’s felt it start, he’s been able to stop. But now he’s _damaged_ , and he can’t stop it anymore.

“It’s fine,” he tells Lovegood. “I’m fine. I just—sometimes my lungs don’t work.”

“This has happened before?”

He nods. “It was better. It’s been a long time. Months. Not since December.”

“Is it only your lungs?”

Draco shrugs. “I felt dizzy just now. Sometimes I feel nauseated.”

“When does it happen?”

He shrugs again. _When I’m rejected. When I’m scared. When I’m not wanted._

“Draco, I think that was a panic attack. Are you usually feeling anxious when they happen?”

He nods. “I wasn’t—I mean, that boy wasn’t—”

“Anxiety isn’t always rational,” Lovegood says. “He was the first stranger you’ve seen since you woke up, and I think that’s what triggered it.”

He can tell she’s trying to comfort him; it isn’t his fault his body reacted that way. It isn’t any comfort. He can barely move, can barely eat, can’t do magic at all, and apparently couldn’t even successfully leave this room if he tried because he’d have a _panic attack_ the second he saw a stranger.

They decide that Draco should be in the Manor after all. Lovegood cannot singlehandedly see to all of Draco’s needs, not when she has other commitments, like the meeting she had with her superiors when the boy brought Draco’s lunch. Narcissa will be there whenever he needs her, and Lovegood will come for his therapy. (The original idea of Draco coming to St. Mungo’s for therapy is abandoned with the discovery of his panic attacks and the improbability of his being able to come to the hospital without encountering strangers.)

And it helps. It helps for Draco to be in his bedroom, surrounded by his own things, rather than in a private hospital room. It helps to have his friends visiting him at home and not in hospital. It helps, though Draco would be loath to admit it, to have his mother taking care of him.

With Lovegood’s help, he begins to walk again. He starts to eat more solid foods, though heavier things are still difficult to process. They don’t do anything related to magic. She tells him it’s all interrelated, that his improved physical condition is linked to his magical energy and they’ll be able to work on that soon, but it’s hard to be patient.

It’s hard to be patient when there is still no word from Harry, even after Draco talked to Ginny. “I’ll talk to him,” she said, “but he’s been an enormous prick lately. I don’t know that it will make a difference.”

And it doesn’t. Harry doesn’t come, and he doesn’t ask Ginny to pass anything on. Ginny reluctantly tells Draco that he still goes out and still brings people home, still gets drunk and high off his mind. Ginny and James have moved into the second bedroom on the fourth floor, across from Harry’s, and Harry only fucks strangers in downstairs bedrooms now. He watches James while Ginny has her matches and practices, but once she comes home he always leaves for the night.

“I don’t think he’s sleeping enough,” she says, and Draco wants to see him so much it hurts.

Lovegood gives her approval for Draco to start going to visit people, rather than them coming to him. He can go to the Burrow, and he can go to Astoria’s. Pansy Parkinson is Astoria’s flatmate now, but she isn’t a stranger, so Draco is all right. She gives him a wide berth, regardless, seemingly unsure of how to act around him now. Draco doesn’t know if it’s because she thinks he’s some sort of traitor, or if it’s because he was attacked, or if she feels sorry for him for being so helpless. When he thinks back to when they used to date in school, he can’t help laughing.

Ginny comes to the Burrow with James most nights for dinner, so he tries to be there too. James makes him feel more energised than anyone else, he’s realised. Lovegood explains this with more reference to the link between magical and physical energy; as a growing child, James is overflowing with so much magic that it improves Draco’s physical state. Draco can’t complain. He never feels more content or more comfortable than when he’s with James and Ginny. His mother is always so _concerned_ , and he can tell Astoria feels partially responsible for what happened. Draco doesn’t blame her, but he can’t help her blaming herself.

He doesn’t see Lucius. Narcissa says he is worried about Draco, but Draco doesn’t care either way. He doesn’t need anyone in his life who doesn’t support him.

On a day that he has done his morning therapy with Lovegood but has his afternoon free, he suddenly realises the extent of the freedom he now has. His mother sits with him as he eats his lunch; she’s going to see Andromeda this afternoon but doesn’t want Draco to feel neglected.

“You could go see Astoria,” she suggests, but Astoria, unlike Draco, is now an Auror, and she is at work for several more hours.

“Maybe,” Draco says, realising what he can do.

He can’t Apparate without his magic where it needs to be, so he Floos everywhere. To the Burrow, to Astoria’s. To Harry’s.

His mother leaves, and Draco does too.

When he comes out of the fire in the sitting room of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, he finds the room empty. But he can _feel_ Harry. He knows Harry is home. He feels a bit silly, but he’s been starting to feel the magical energy that Lovegood is always talking about. He can feel it by the shift in how he feels, the way he gets stronger and more alert around James but feels so exhausted at the end of a day that he spends with only his mother. He can tell immediately that James is in the house, and he can tell Harry is too.

He walks down to the kitchen, and there they are, James in a high chair at the table and Harry at the counter with his back to the door.

“Harry,” he says.

James smiles and coos and reaches for Draco. A bit of food has dribbled down his chin from his mouth, and the bowl in front of him is mostly empty. Draco has never seen Harry feed James, and he’s been sceptical of Harry watching James during the day instead of Molly, but seeing them now, he’s filled with a surge of pride.

It takes a second for Harry to turn around, and when he does, his expression immediately goes blank. He’s wearing his glasses, Draco notices.

“What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you.”

Harry returns to putting away the things he used for his lunch. “Can’t take a hint, then.”

“Let me help,” is all Draco says in response. He wipes up James’s face and washes his bowl in the sink by hand. Harry watches silently. When Draco is done, he picks up James and heads back up to the sitting room. He hopes Harry will follow.

He sits on the sofa and settles James in his lap. James is endlessly fascinated with Draco’s fingers, and he immediately grabs hold of his right ring finger. Draco can already feel the warmth building, the sluggishness fading. He could _run_ right now, he thinks.

“Ginny told me he helps,” Harry says from the doorway. He followed.

Draco nods and watches as Harry approaches and sits on the other end of the sofa. He sits with his back to the arm, facing Draco.

“Why didn’t you come see me?” Draco asks.

“What for?” Harry asks in response.

“It would have been nice to see you.”

“You had Ginny, Astoria, Hermione. Your mother. Luna. My kid.”

“I want _you_ ,” Draco says plainly.

Harry seems to crumble at that, his shoulders falling forward and his head coming to rest in his hands. “You seem like you’re doing all right,” he says, not looking at Draco.

“I’m better than I was. I’m walking, and eating, and able to stay out of bed for most of the day. I still can’t do magic. Lovegood won’t let me try yet. If I do it too early it could hurt my chances of ever regaining my full abilities.”

He watches Harry, bent with his head in his hands, and looks down at James, who beams up at him.

“Granger told me you were there,” he says. “She told me how it all happened.”

“She told you how I didn’t do a damn thing to stop it,” Harry says, straightening and running a hand through his hair. It’s longer now.

“She told me you stayed for three days.”

“It didn’t feel like three days,” Harry says. He still won’t make eye contact.

“It wasn’t your fault, Harry,” Draco says. “There wasn’t anything you could have done.”  
Harry shakes his head, and Draco can’t tell whether he’s agreeing or disagreeing. His head is angled so that his glasses shield his eyes.

“Astoria thinks it’s her fault,” Draco tells him. “She blames herself. She suggested that I get you alone. The spells were her idea. She saw Peakes harassing me for the entire duration of our training but never spoke up about it because _I_ wanted to keep my head down. After the way the trial went, she blames herself for Peakes getting away with it, too.”

Harry shrugs. “It sounds like she has a lot to feel guilty for.”

“She doesn’t have anything to feel guilty for,” Draco says, glaring at Harry. “She’s been a wonderful friend to me, and the only person responsible for what Peakes did is Peakes himself. Not Astoria, and not you.”

James grabs a fistful of Draco’s sleeve.

“I didn’t see him,” Harry says. “I heard him. I was watching you walk back in, and I could hear an extra pair of footsteps. I called you, and you stopped, but the extra ones kept going, and then you were on the ground. There was a flash and you just collapsed. It wasn’t like a Stunner, or anything I’ve ever seen. It looked like something had been ripped out of you. Like whatever was holding you up was suddenly...gone. It was like everything stopped.”

Draco sits frozen, and James tugs on the fabric of his sleeve.

“They said you wouldn’t wake up. They told me they didn’t think you were going to wake up.” Harry looks up at him then, at last. Draco thinks his eyes might be wet, behind his glasses.

Draco scoots closer to him on the couch, bringing James with him. He holds Harry, and Harry holds him, and James is warm between them.

—

When Draco gets back to the Manor, his mother and Lovegood are there waiting for him.

“I thought you weren’t coming back today,” he says to Lovegood.

“Your mother was worried what state you’d be in when you returned,” she says. “And she’s been telling me about your little cousin Teddy, which has been lovely.”

Narcissa is far less calm about it. “I Flooed Astoria,” she starts, “and she said you never came by. I Flooed Molly, and she said she last saw you two days ago. Where did you go, Draco? And why didn’t you tell me?”

“I went to see Harry,” he says unapologetically.

This makes his mother’s eyes go even more wide and worried. “Are you all right?”

“Do I look all right?”

Narcissa looks to Lovegood, who is staring at Draco curiously.

“You look more than all right,” Lovegood says. “What did you do?”

“Talked a bit,” Draco says. “Sat with him and James on the sofa.”

Ginny had returned at a quarter to six, sweaty and smiling, and let out an excited squeal when she came into the sitting room to find them together. “I’m going to take a quick shower, but I can take James off your hands if you’d like.”

Draco had been more than fine having James on his hands, as it were, but Harry rearranged them once Ginny had James, so they lay across the sofa with Draco’s head on Harry’s chest and Harry’s hand softly stroking his hair. It felt perfect. It felt like there was nothing wrong with him at all. Harry fell asleep and Draco just lay there, listening to Harry’s breathing and feeling his heartbeat. He woke Harry up to say goodbye before he left. They didn’t kiss at all. Draco could understand that; he was broken at the moment, or breakable, and he could see how this would make Harry hesitate. Draco wanted to kiss him, though. He wanted to come back tomorrow just to kiss him properly.

“How long were you there?” Lovegood asks him.

“I went after lunch,” Draco says, “so eight hours or so, roughly?”

Narcissa purses her lips and looks as though she intends to reprimand him, but her expression changes abruptly when Lovegood says, “You should go again tomorrow.”

“What?” Draco and Narcissa say simultaneously. “I mean, I do want to,” Draco continues, “but why?”

“You look healthier than I’ve seen you after any other visit,” she tells him. “Is it all right if we do some exercises, even though it’s late?”

Draco shrugs, and Narcissa watches as he does all of the movements Lovegood asks him to. Lovegood looks on with an expression of wide-eyed delight, and her optimism is infectious; soon Narcissa is smiling as well.

“Do you feel tired at all?” Lovegood asks, and Draco shakes his head.

“I’ve been lying down for a couple of hours, though,” he says.

“Not sleeping, though.”

“No, not sleeping.”

“And did you eat dinner?”

“Ginny fixed us pasta.”

Lovegood nods. “I’ll see how you’re doing in the morning, of course, and we can reassess, but for now I think you should go to Number Twelve again tomorrow afternoon, after lunch, and come back here at five so that I can get a better sense of how this affects you.”

Narcissa seems flabbergasted that Draco sneaking off to see Harry for eight hours actually had _positive_ effects, and Draco can’t help feeling similarly surprised. He thought it was a selfish choice and that he’d be lectured for it, not encouraged.

In the morning, Lovegood seems just as pleased with his energy as she was the night before, and she sends him off to Harry’s with a smile after lunch. Draco doesn’t give Harry any warning today either. He again finds them downstairs in the kitchen and again helps clean up after James. Today there are toys scattered across the floor in the sitting room, and James sits there on the carpet playing with them. Draco and Harry sit on the sofa, idly touching as they talk; Draco plays with Harry’s fingers, Harry strokes along the skin of Draco’s forearm, their thighs press together as they sit close.

They talk about how much James is growing, how close the Harpies are to the finals, how much Teddy has come to love his Aunt Narcissa. Draco tells Harry how Lovegood reacted when he returned the previous night, and how it was her who insisted he come back today.

This time, he kisses Harry when he says goodbye. It’s a small, chaste kiss, but it feels like something clicks into place. Like things are where they’re supposed to be again.

When he comes back to the Manor, Lovegood has him repeat some of the things he did that morning. He gets the distinct impression she is comparing his performance to some standard, but he can never tell what’s going on in her mind. She never takes notes, but seems to rely on her intuition and understanding to put things together. It’s unnerving, not knowing precisely what she’s looking for, but he can’t deny that her methods seem to help him.

“Draco,” she says when he’s done, “have you given any thought to the possibility of living with Harry?”

It isn’t something he’s at all prepared to hear. Narcissa responds first.

“Absolutely not.”

Draco and Lovegood both turn to her, surprised.

“He needs to be with someone who will take care of him,” she says. “I know that Harry cares about you, Draco, but he is not a caretaker. He has his own life to consider. He can’t see that you’re fed and that you manage your energy and don’t overexert—”

“I don’t believe any of that would be a problem anymore, Narcissa. If Draco were to live with Harry, I’m actually quite sure he’d be able to do everything for himself. After several hours yesterday and only a few today, he has more vitality than I’ve seen at any point in his recovery. Normally he’s in bed by nine and has trouble standing at that point, but last night he was not only standing, but _moving_. He’s doing just as well today. I think that if this continues,” she says to Draco, “you’ll be able to start practicing magic again very soon.”

Narcissa can’t say no to that.

Draco goes to Harry’s again the next day and asks him. Harry shrugs in response. “You can do whatever you’d like,” he says. _I want you here_ , Draco hears.

—

They celebrate Harry’s twenty-fourth birthday the week after Draco starts staying with him. It makes Draco realise he’s already twenty-four as well; having been magically sedated for his birthday, he hadn’t given much thought to its passing.

Harry tells Draco that he doesn’t _do_ things for his birthday, that it has never felt special enough to warrant celebrating, but they do _do_ something anyway, at Ginny’s insistence. An assortment of relatives and old Hogwarts schoolmates come to Number Twelve for dinner, which Ginny cooks with Lovegood’s help. Molly brings a very large, very rich chocolate cake.

Draco keeps his distance from those he doesn’t already know well, trying to avoid any uncomfortable interaction and/or sudden unexpected inability to breathe. Some of them approach him, though. Dean Thomas, who is apparently dating Lovegood, tells Draco he thinks the lack of consequence for Peakes is “just bollocks.” Thomas was in Draco’s year at Hogwarts and they never had a single friendly interaction. It’s startling sometimes how much things can change.

Draco knows that Granger hasn’t seen much of Harry lately, and he can see the slight tension there as she greets him and wishes him a happy birthday. After she hugs him, she joins Draco in his corner, where he’s standing apart from the rest.

“I think he’s doing better,” Granger says, “now that you’re here.” It sounds backwards. She should be commenting that Draco seems better, but Draco knows what she means. Harry spent a month only leaving his house to get shitfaced and have sex, and now he’s having friends over for dinner and being perfectly pleasant all the while.

“He seems like he’s all right,” Draco says. And it’s true, he does. He hasn’t shut down with Draco the way he did before, the last time Draco stayed with him. He is comfortable holding him and touching him affectionately, even in front of other people, and he openly says that he cares, though not in so many words. They don’t have sex, though. They haven’t done anything more than deep kissing, and they sleep in their pants rather than in the nude. Harry is afraid to break him, Draco can tell. And while Harry hasn’t closed himself off entirely, there is a subtle but constant and tangible sadness about him.

They all eat in the dining room, nearly filling the long table. The guests toast to Harry’s health and happiness, and Harry smiles bashfully. Molly refers explicitly to Harry and Draco making each other happy. Draco half expects someone at the table to gasp, or for Harry to freeze up and behave awkwardly for a while, but no one so much as raises their eyebrows. Draco knew the Weasleys knew, but the easy acceptance from the others surprises him. He can’t help wondering whether a real, public coming-out could be met with easy acceptance as well.

After the meal, everyone migrates to the sitting room. Some people have brought Harry presents, most of them small and silly. Draco didn’t buy him anything. Draco doesn’t have any money, or the ability to be in a room with strangers without having a panic attack. He’s sure Harry doesn’t mind, but he wishes there were something he could do all the same.

Draco sits on the sofa, first with Ginny, then with Granger, then with George and Weasley; he feels more comfortable staying in one place as the others mill about than navigating the interrelated social groups present. The room—the whole house, even—feels so different like this, all full of people. Its scale seems less austere, more open and inviting. Seeing Harry surrounded by family and friends this way, Draco wishes life could be like this all the time. He wishes Harry didn’t spend his life either locked away alone or out in public and masked. Either way, he’s hiding from the world.

As it gets later, people start to leave. Andromeda and Teddy first, then the others with young children. Ginny puts James to bed upstairs, and Bill and Fleur carry home a sleeping Dominique and a nearly-asleep Victoire. The others stay, too engrossed in conversation to go home just yet. Draco, still on the couch, watches Harry laugh with Neville Longbottom and Dean Thomas and contemplates the transformative power of friendship. It feels as though a perfect peace has come over the room, and Draco wonders whether it will last when the night is over.

Ginny comes to sit with Draco again, curling up against his side and resting her head on his shoulder. “How are you doing?” she asks, taking his hand and entwining their fingers.

When Lovegood explained that Draco can, in a manner of speaking, absorb energy from others, Ginny started doing this when he grew tired. Draco told her that it’s more based on interaction or simple proximity than physical contact and that conversation with her would have just about the same effect, but she likes the physical affection, and he rather likes it too.

“I’m all right,” he says. “Tonight has been really nice.”

“Glad I forced Harry to have this,” she says, nodding against his shoulder. “I think he forgets that he needs people.”

“How are you, Draco?” Lovegood asks, and comes to sit on his other side.

“As a fellow friend of Harry’s, or as your patient?” Draco asks.

“How ever you like,” Lovegood says.

“I’m fine, really.” Ginny laughs into his shirt. “Ginny was just asking the same.”

“It’s nearly eleven,” Lovegood points out. They all know Draco is usually asleep by this time.

“You can go upstairs if you’d like,” Ginny says, and gives his hand a squeeze. “No one would mind.”

“I’ll wait for Harry.”

Lovegood nods, but keeps watching him. Ginny stays with them on the couch for a bit, but is eventually called over to the other side of the room by George, who appears to be arm-wrestling with Thomas. Lovegood watches and laughs from where she is, on the sofa with Draco.

“You really aren’t tired,” Lovegood says, and Draco realises she’s watching him again, not Thomas. She sounds surprised, but it isn’t a question, and she doesn’t seem to expect a response.

She’s quiet for long enough that Draco’s attention shifts back to the group on the other side of the room, and when she speaks again, it takes a moment for him to register her meaning.

“He visited you.”

When he understands what she’s saying, he physically jolts in surprise.

“He didn’t want me to say anything. He came every night and sat under his invisibility cloak, all night. He’d come at different hours, but he was almost always still there when I came to check on you in the morning.” Lovegood’s gaze is inscrutable. “I don’t think he knew the wards were set to record whenever anyone came in or out. I could see it whenever he came and went.

“It strengthened you the whole time, you know. I wasn’t sure until you sneaked off to see him. Every morning you woke up a little bit stronger. I thought it might have just been the rest, but you didn’t wake up from afternoon naps feeling rejuvenated, and once you moved home it didn’t happen anymore. Sleep didn’t make you feel stronger, people did. Harry most of all.” Lovegood says gravely, “I’m not sure you would have ever woken up if he hadn’t come.”

Draco watches Harry laugh with Weasley and Ginny, and he wonders what else he hasn’t told him.

—

“Every night?” Astoria repeats.

“Every night.”

“Wow.”

They sit in silence and contemplate that for a moment. Draco remembers how Harry was when he came to Number Twelve unannounced. _I didn’t do a damn thing to stop it_ , Harry said. Draco wonders how guilty a person would have to feel to come to sit with someone he couldn’t save every night for months.

“And you haven’t talked to him about it.”

Draco shakes his head. “He was so happy after the party. I didn’t know how to bring it up.” Instead, they made out rather intensely for over an hour, until Harry felt tired and said they should go to sleep. Draco never felt tired that night; he lay awake, curled up with Harry, and listened to his breathing until it was already starting to grow light outside. Somehow that was far more relaxing than sleep.

“So he doesn’t know you know. But he knows Lovegood knows?”

“I assume so. She said he didn’t want her to tell me. She probably caught him one morning, if his invisibility cloak slipped.”

“I still can’t believe he has a sodding _invisibility cloak_.”

“Since he was eleven.”

“The bastard.”

Draco laughs. “I always thought so,” he says, “but I’m not sure anymore.”

“It sounds a bit psychotic, honestly,” Astoria says, eyebrows knit together. “If he wanted to see you, he should have just come and visited the way the rest of us did.”

“The rest of you came through the hospital,” Draco points out. “How do you think it would have looked for him to visit every day?”

“He has an _invisibility cloak_.”

“Solid point.”

“I’m only saying, he could have just _visited_ and not forgone sleep to watch you lie there unconscious instead. And once you woke up, he could have come and talked to you like a _normal_ _person_.”

“I don’t think he knew what to say.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe asked how you were feeling and seen what he could do to be there for you in your time of need, like a _normal person_.”

“ _Astoria_.”

“You have to admit it’s a _little_ psychotic.”

“I don’t _have to_ admit anything.”

“You just like it because you’re a little psychotic, too.”

Draco opens his mouth to defend himself but laughs instead. Just then, someone clears their throat behind them.

Draco turns to see Pansy in the entrance to the sitting room. She’s wearing her office robes, fresh from work. She stands awkwardly in the doorway as though unsure of whether or not she’s welcome to enter. Draco wants to say _It’s your flat, too,_ but he still isn’t sure how to speak to her.

“Hello, Draco,” Pansy tries. It’s the first time since she moved into the flat that she’s spoken to him without prompting from Astoria.

“Hello, Pansy.”

His non-hostile response seems to encourage her, and she steps fully into the room. “I wanted to apologise,” she says, somehow sounding incredibly aggressive rather than remotely apologetic.

“What for?”

Astoria has tensed, and Draco realises this must not be as out-of-the-blue as it feels.

“For getting you kicked out of home,” Pansy says just as assertively. “It was an awful thing to do and you didn’t deserve it.”

“You’ll understand if I don’t believe you,” Draco says slowly, “given that you don’t sound a bit sorry. Also, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Pansy sighs deeply and sits in the armchair across from the love seat Draco and Astoria are sitting on. “When those rumours about you started. When they put all of those pictures together. I sent it to your father because I knew he didn’t know the first thing about what you were getting up to, and I knew he’d be furious, and I wanted to see you put in your place. I didn’t know you’d have to leave home, and I’m sorry.” She sounds slightly more sincere this time, though still rather exasperated at the entire concept of _apologising_.

“And I forgive you,” Draco says. “Having to leave the Manor may have been the best thing that’s happened to me.”

Pansy frowns. “Oh.”

“Were you hoping it had been terrible for me?”

“No, but—well, I thought it must have been. I’m not sure I’m sorry, then.”

“I forgive you anyway.”

Astoria gives Pansy a pointed look, and Pansy sighs again. “I only—well, we were all a bit frustrated with you then. You were doing so _well_ , and the rest of us were barely scraping by. But, I mean, look at you now.”

Draco isn’t sure how he’s supposed to take that. “Look at me now?”

“Well, it’s easy to resent someone for being successful, but it’s awfully hard to be angry with you now that you’re so pathe—”

“ _Pansy_ ,” Astoria warns.

“It’s the truth!” she exclaims. “You can’t even do magic anymore. How could I resent you now?”

“Understandable,” Draco says.

“I only—” she starts, then rolls her eyes and starts again. “What I’m trying to say is, it was hard to see you rubbing elbows with all of the _right_ people and making something of yourself. The rest of us suddenly found ourselves on the bottom rung of society, and there _you_ were, making nice with all of Harry Potter’s friends, and then Harry Potter himself. You were on your way to a highly esteemed, well paid career, and everyone had forgotten all about that Dark Mark on your arm. I didn’t even _have_ a Dark Mark and there weren’t any opportunities for me, simply because of my father and the people my family associated with. I was no more guilty than you—arguably less guilty, even—and you were making something of yourself, while I….I had to take whatever I could get. All of us did.

“Theo was the only respectable one out of all of us, and that’s because he ran away instead of taking the Mark. He made the brave, stupid choice, and he was rewarded by getting to become a Healer and redeem the Nott family. But he made the brave, stupid choice. You didn’t. He didn’t abandon the rest of us. You did. Daphne and Theo and Gregory and Tracey and Millicent and I—we had to stick together. Zabini fucked off to Italy and you fucked off to the Aurors and Crabbe _died_ , and the rest of us were left to keep each other afloat while the world shit on us over and over. It should have been enough that we weren’t in Azkaban. The guilty ones were sentenced, and that should have been enough. We were _kids_. But the world doesn’t work that way. Staying out of prison doesn’t mean freedom.”

She clenches her jaw and glares very forcefully, but Draco can tell her anger is directed at the _world_ , not him.

“And it was so hard to see you succeeding, Draco. It was so hard. I was so angry with you. We always looked out for each other in school. We Slytherins—no one cared about us, but we cared about each other, didn’t we? It looked like you only cared about yourself. But you were barely staying afloat too, weren’t you? Just barely.”

Draco nods and swallows hard. He _had_ been thinking of himself. He had been thinking of what he could do to restore his own place in society, with the wiped (though still smudged) slate miraculously handed to him. He hadn’t thought about the people he was leaving behind.

“I thought they’d accepted you. When I heard you’d been attacked, I thought they’d rally up behind you, I really did. And then they _didn’t_. You were in hospital in a barely stable state, and your attacker was _rewarded_. He got to have the future you’d been working toward for years, and you suddenly had nothing. Even less than me. So I’m sorry, Draco. I’m sorry for hating you, and I’m sorry for what happened to you.”

There is no question of her sincerity this time.

They sit in a rather sombre silence for several moments, until Draco says, “I haven’t—I haven’t been _abandoned_ , Pansy. The people who didn’t rally up behind me were never behind me to begin with. It’s just that the people who did rally up behind me weren’t enough.”

Pansy nods. “I know. And I know they aren’t—I know they’re really your friends. You aren’t just using the _right_ people to your advantage. I know you really care about them.”

Astoria actually cracks a smile at that. “Oh, he definitely _cares_.”

The remark confuses Pansy. She looks back and forth between them, and Draco decides there isn’t any harm in telling her. After all that, it seems wrong not to trust her.

“Pansy, what Astoria finds so terribly amusing is that I’m in love with Harry Potter.”

Disappointingly, Pansy barely reacts. “I saw it coming when we were thirteen, to be honest.”

“You and I dated when we were fifteen.”

She shrugs. “I saw it coming then, too.”

“I’m not just in love with him. He’s also in love with me.”

This does surprise her, which Draco finds rewarding. “Harry Potter is in love with Draco Malfoy?”

“Rather passionately,” Astoria confirms. “Sometimes it’s a bit sickening.”

“When is it _sickening_?” Draco asks.

“When you tell me all about everywhere his mouth has been.”

“That isn’t sickening,” Draco says, “that’s titillating.”

“How did that happen?” Pansy asks.

“How did Harry put his mouth all over Draco?”

“How did they—you know, _love_ , and all that. How did that happen?”

“I think once you’ve had enough contact with another person’s penis it just happens automatically,” Astoria says, and Pansy raises an eyebrow.

“Please stop talking, Astoria,” Draco says.

“Didn’t he speak for you, at your trial?” Pansy asks.

Draco nods. “He owed my mother. I don’t think he would have otherwise. There really wasn’t anything to go on, just his gut feeling that I wasn’t _really_ a bad person. But when it’s Harry Potter testifying, gut feeling is all anyone needs to be convinced. I probably would have gone to Azkaban otherwise; there was too much evidence against me.”

Pansy snickers at that. “It’s a shame we don’t all have Harry Potters defending us.”

“It’s the truth, though,” Astoria says. “Hermione Granger did everything she could to get justice for Draco, and it didn’t mean a thing to anyone.”

“She works on anti-discrimination legislation,” Draco tells Pansy, “or tries to. It’s been her goal for years to make the Wizarding world a fairer place, with equal opportunity for everyone. That’s why she helped me get into Auror training.”

“Gryffindors,” Pansy says. “Always fighting for a cause.”

“Doesn’t mean they always win,” Draco says.

“They never win,” Pansy says. “They only change the terms of the next battle.”

—

Draco doesn’t mean to get ideas. He doesn’t want to expect anything of Harry. Harry is more than what he’s done for Draco. Yes, he kept Draco out of prison and made it possible for him to finish his education and train to be an Auror. Yes, he’s taken Draco in and let him be a part of his life, even while Draco has absolutely nothing to offer. Yes, he’s the reason Draco has been able to recover from Peakes’ spell as well has he has. But Harry is not a solution to all of Draco’s problems. He is not a genie. He cannot grant wishes.

Draco can’t help wondering, though, what would happen if Harry put his support behind some of Granger’s proposed legislation. He wonders whether Harry stating his support for equal opportunity for all—Muggleborns and purebloods and werewolves and half-breeds and former criminals alike—would make a difference. He knows from experience that Granger does all she can to fight for her causes, and he is sure she’s talked to Harry about this before, but all the same, Draco can’t help wondering. _It’s a shame we don’t all have Harry Potters defending us._

He tells Harry about his conversation with Pansy and Astoria, about how difficult it’s been for his old friends. “Goyle served out his probation, same as I did, but he doesn’t have anyone like Granger helping him out. He’s working in a pub in Knockturn Alley, barely making a living wage. Nott has it relatively good, but sometimes patients will insist on a different Healer, one whose father wasn’t a Death Eater. And Nott wasn’t ever even a Death Eater himself!”

Harry nods absently, and Draco wonders whether he’s even listening. They’re laying across Harry’s bed, and they had been kissing for a bit before Draco paused things to talk about this. He can’t help suspecting that Harry is only waiting until they can go back to the kissing.

“We got to thinking about what was different for me,” Draco continues. “You know, how I got to be so lucky.”

“Lucky,” Harry repeats sceptically. So he _is_ listening.

“Yes, lucky. I could have gone to Azkaban. Instead, I had the chance to go back to Hogwarts and take my NEWTs, and then to go on to Auror training—”

“Only to lose it all,” Harry finishes.

“Not _all_ ,” Draco says.

“So your friends all want to be Aurors too, then.”

“No. They’d just like to live in a world where they aren’t hated on sight.”

“Nice thought.”

“If Granger could get anyone to take her legislation seriously,” Draco says, “it could be reality.”

“ _If_.”

“It could happen.”

Harry looks doubtful. “How’s that?”

“They’d take it seriously if you told them to.”

“I can’t tell anyone to do anything,” Harry says.

“Yes, you can,” Draco insists. “You could tell anyone to do anything, and they’d listen to you.”

“They listen to Harry Potter, not me.”

Draco isn’t entirely sure what to say to that. “You _are_ Harry Potter?” he says uncertainly.

“ _Harry Potter_ is a carefully engineered creation,” Harry says bitterly. “He doesn’t exist. I have nothing to do with what Harry Potter endorses or condemns.”

“That isn’t true. You decide what you do and don’t say.”

“They write the script and I just read it,” Harry says, and he isn’t only talking about speeches.

“They’d let you endorse Granger if you wanted.”

Harry sits up, suddenly looking quite cross. “And why would I want to do that?”

“Because there are people out there being kicked while they’re down,” Draco says. “Because there are people out there who aren’t as lucky as me, who didn’t get the opportunities I—”

“You aren’t _lucky_ ,” Harry says, volume rising. “Your life is fucked. You tried as hard as you could and you’re _still_ nothing.”

“And if Granger could make it right, if this was law instead of her far-fetched dream, maybe I’d have a chance to be _something_.”

“Hermione can make it right on her own,” Harry says, standing up from the bed. “She doesn’t need me getting in the way.”

“You wouldn’t _get in the way_ , Harry. You’d be able to make people listen. You could change things, in ways no one else can.”

He doesn’t want to be asking this of Harry. He doesn’t want to be asking Harry for anything at all, not when Harry has already done so much. But Harry’s resistance aggravates Draco, makes him want to push back twice as hard. He stands, too, the bed between them.

“It wouldn’t make a fucking difference,” Harry says forcefully.

“But what if it could? What if you could change things for them?”

“I don’t owe them anything.”

“I’m not saying you _owe_ them, or that you have to. You don’t owe _me_ anything either.”

“Yes, _I do_ ,” Harry yells. “I owe you for _everything_. It’s all my fucking fault, and I want to make it up to you, but I can’t. I’m sorry I can’t _fix you_ ,” he says, his voice going cold and quiet, and it’s so much worse than his shouting. “I’m sorry I can’t _make it better_. I’m sorry your life is fucked, but I can’t do anything about it, so stop your fucking whining. I’m not your saviour. I can’t save you.”

He storms out, slamming the door hard behind him. Draco hears his footsteps down the stairs, and the faint sound of the front door slamming shut as he goes.

—

James starts crying.

That’s the sound Draco hears, though it takes a while to register. James has woken up, and he is crying. Draco sits on the edge of the bed and listens to the sound of it travelling across the hall, through the door of Ginny’s bedroom and of this one. After a while, the crying stops. Ginny’s door creaks open, and there are footsteps, and then a soft knock.

“Draco?” she asks through the door.

When he doesn’t answer, she opens the door anyway. It isn’t until she approaches him, until she’s sitting beside him on the bed and rubbing soothing circles over his back, that he realises he’s having a panic attack. He’s crying and gasping and his skin feels hot and his chest feels tight, and he thinks that if Ginny weren’t there he’d have fallen to the floor.

“He loves you, Draco,” Ginny is saying. “He loves you. I know it seems like he won’t be there for you, but he’s there for you all the time, Draco. He’s there for you every way he knows how to be, and all you’d have to do is ask and he’d do even more.”

Draco doesn’t know why he’s crying, but he can’t stop, and his chest hurts so much, and somehow Ginny’s words only make it worse.

“He loves you. He’d do anything for you, Draco; he loves you so much. He gets scared sometimes, but he loves you, and he only wants you to be happy. He’d do anything.”

Draco shakes his head, but he doesn’t know what part of what she’s saying it is that he’s trying to refute. Ginny keeps saying things like this, keeps repeating how much Harry loves him, and Draco can’t stop crying. He feels as though something has cracked open, as though he’s going to keep crying until he physically _can’t_ anymore, and nothing can stop it. Ginny holds him tight against her and rocks him gently back and forth, and slowly his shallow gasps become deep, shuddering breaths, until those, too, become regular and even. He’s still crying, but his chest doesn’t hurt the same way anymore.

“What happened?” Ginny asks, very gently.

“No,” Draco starts, but that’s wrong. “It wasn’t—Harry didn’t—”

Ginny links their hands together. “Harry didn’t what?”

“He didn’t do anything,” Draco says. “I’m just—I’m just wrong.”

“You aren’t wrong,” Ginny says, sounding as though she takes this personally. “Draco, you’re all right. It’s all right.”

“He didn’t do anything,” Draco repeats. “He just—he can’t save me. I know he can’t save me. I don’t want him to save me.”

“Save you?”

Draco shakes his head. He doesn’t know what he means.

“Draco,” she says, “it isn’t whether you want him to save you. It’s that _he_ wants to save you, and he doesn’t know how. He wants you to be happy, and it’s killing him that you aren’t.”

“I _am_ happy,” Draco says. “He makes me so happy. I want _him_ to be happy.”

“Harry doesn’t know how to be happy,” Ginny says, and Draco can already tell there’s more she wants to say. She hesitates, though, and squeezes his hand, as though to reassure herself rather than him. “Draco,” she says eventually, “Harry asked me to marry him.”

Draco lets out a choked sob, and Ginny immediately adds, “Oh, no, no! Not—not just _now_ , not recently. Before. No, Draco, no, he loves you—he wouldn’t—”

“Just tell me,” Draco interrupts.

“He proposed. He proposed three times, actually, and I said no three times. He didn’t—he thought he was _supposed_ to be with me. He didn’t want it, not ever, but he thought he _should_ want it. The first time was the summer after the war, amidst all of the reparations. I told him I didn’t want to get back together, and he said he didn’t want to either because he needed to focus on himself for a bit, but we were young and horny and happy to be alive, so we had sex anyway. The second or third time he asked me to marry him afterward. Merlin, it was the _worst_ pillow talk. I let him down gently and let him play it off like it had just been a joke, but he _meant_ it. He really thought we should get married, as a couple of teenagers fresh out of some of the most traumatic experiences of our lives. I think he had his parents in mind, honestly. They married at eighteen, and he’d never seen any other way to do it, really.”

“You said you were never together,” Draco says, remembering the conversation they had in the first floor bedroom, all those months ago.

“We weren’t. That’s what was oddest about it. We didn’t even want to be together for the short term, so the idea of committing to _forever_ was just—it was ludicrous. And then he got the same idea in his head the next summer because he knew Ron was planning to propose to Hermione when we graduated. So he got a ring, too, and he proposed to me, too. And we still weren’t together, and he still felt he _ought_ to, and—it was completely absurd, Draco. I wanted to play Quidditch. I didn’t want to start a family. And neither of us felt for each other anything like what Ron and Hermione felt, and still feel. It didn’t make any sense. I talked him down from it and we agreed to be friends, but only friends.”

It _does_ sound absurd, but Draco can picture it. He can imagine Harry at eighteen, no longer sure of his place in the world and looking for some sort of comfort and security. He can see how Ginny, such a warm and positive source of energy, would seem like an answer. He can see Harry telling himself she was what he wanted, and even believing it.

“And I’m so glad I said no, and he always was glad as well. We joked about it over the years, laughing at the idea of us settled down together. It always seemed ridiculous. But then I got pregnant with Jamie, and apparently it didn’t seem so ridiculous, because he tried _again_. He bought another ring and got down on one knee and spouted all of this utter bullshit about _stability_ and how maybe this was a sign that we were supposed to do it. Never mind that neither of us wanted to. Never mind that even though we determined Harry was indeed the father, there had been four other equally likely candidates. Never mind that the offer was still entirely based on _duty_. I talked him out of it again. But we didn’t tell anyone, so my mum spent the next six months trying to convince us to do something we had already decided quite firmly not to do.”

Draco thinks this information should surprise him, but it doesn’t. It makes a lot of sense, and it explains a lot about their relationship. Draco remembers what Ginny said, that time in the first floor bedroom. _I don’t want to settle for him, and I don’t want him to settle for me._ She said they were too close to fake it.

“It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

Draco shakes his head. “It doesn’t.”

“It _is_ ridiculous,” Ginny insists. “The lengths Harry will go to try to satisfy others, without a bit of thought to what might actually satisfy _him_.”

“Making you happy would have made him happy,” Draco says. “He would have been content with that.”

“That’s precisely it, though. Marrying him wouldn’t have made me happy, and so it wouldn’t have made him happy either! I’m happy now, like this, with us in each other’s lives without any forced _togetherness_. We have Jamie and I love him more than anything, and I know Harry does, too. We don’t need a marriage to make that love legitimate.”

“So you’re telling me this because you want me to see the lengths he will go for obligation,” Draco says.

“No, I’m telling you this because Harry doesn’t know the first thing about how to be happy. All he ever does is try to make other people happy. He _never_ tries to do what would make him happy—he doesn’t even let himself _think_ about what would make him happy! He doesn’t know because he won’t let himself know. He just beats himself up over not being able to singlehandedly save every single person he cares about from every single thing wrong with their lives, and it makes him miserable.”

“It’s killing him that I’m like this,” Draco says. “That I’m broken.”

“You aren’t broken.”

“My life is fucked.”

“He’s happier with you here,” Ginny insists.

“He’s sad _all the time_ , Ginny. Sometimes less so, but he is _always_ sad.”

“If he’d stop beating himself up—”

“Or if I absolved him,” Draco says.

“I know you’ve told him it isn’t his fault.”

“Not that—if I let him go.”

Ginny frowns. “What, as in—”

“If I stopped being his problem. I can take care of myself. I’m doing better. He doesn’t have to be my miraculous cure-all. He doesn’t owe me anything.”

“He’s doing it because he loves you,” Ginny says, looking very certain, “not because he owes you.”

Draco wishes he could share her certainty. “I don’t know if he can tell the difference.”

“I can,” she says. “He never looked at me the way he looks at you.”

“You said he doesn’t know how to be happy,” he says. “If I’m not helping him, I’m hurting him.”

“You _are_ helping.”

“He’s so _sad_ , Ginny. I don’t know how I could be helping when he’s always so sad.”

Ginny squeezes his hand and rests her head on his shoulder.

—

Ginny is asleep by the time the front door opens and closes again downstairs. She started to doze off there in bed with Draco, and Draco walked her back to her room. He couldn’t sleep, though. Not without Harry.

Harry’s footsteps up the stairs are slow and sound reluctant. It’s nearly two in the morning, and Draco is prepared for the worst. He almost expects Harry to stop short of the top landing and sleep in one of the other bedrooms instead of returning to Draco.

He doesn’t, though. He opens the door and steps inside. He lingers in the doorway for a few moments, looking hesitantly at Draco on the bed. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

“Needed you here,” he says honestly.

“You don’t need me,” Harry says, but he comes to sit on the bed. He smells like smoke and alcohol, but Draco doesn't smell anything else.

“I do,” Draco says.

Harry shakes his head. “I can’t be what you need.”

“I don’t need you to _be_ anything,” Draco insists. “I just need you.”

“I make your life harder.”

“That isn’t true.”

“Yes, it is. It’s what I do. I get people killed, or maimed, or crippled. I ruin lives. Everything I touch turns to shit.” It would sound completely melodramatic if not for the utter conviction with which he says it. “You don’t know how many people have died because of me, or been irreparably damaged—”

“Harry, you’re the only reason I’m doing better.”

“I’m the reason you were hurt in the first place.”

“That _isn’t true_. Peakes had it out for me from the first day of training. He saw a chance and took it—”

“Because you disappeared with Harry Potter.”

“I went to the loo alone and he followed me because he saw an opening. Your involvement was his justification after the fact, but he would have done it anyway.”

“I didn’t stop him,” Harry says angrily.

“You couldn’t have.”

“That’s my _point_. I can’t do anything to help you.”

“I never would have even woken up if not for you.”

“Of course you would have.”

“Lovegood doesn’t think so.” He swallows. “She told me you were there. She told me you came every night.”

Harry doesn’t seem to know what to say to that. “Not every night,” he says eventually, looking down at his hands in his lap.

“You make me stronger,” Draco says, and Harry clenches his jaw. “I’m doing better than I ever was at St. Mungo’s or the Manor, and all that’s changed is that I’m here with you. I was stronger every morning just because you were there while I slept.”

Harry shakes his head as though trying to shake off Draco’s words. “ _Sitting there_ isn’t helping.”

“It made the biggest difference.”

“I could have _really_ made a difference,” Harry says, and Draco can tell he is talking about his silence at the trial. “I could have seen he was punished for what he did to you. But I’m far too _selfish_ —”

“Granger told me how the trial went.”

“Oh, did she?”

“You aren’t selfish, Harry.” Draco can’t imagine how it must have felt to go through that, after being there when it happened, after sitting with Draco for days unsure of whether he’d even live, after convincing himself it was his own fault. Harry isn’t selfish.

“Who else have you been talking to, then?”

“I’ve been talking to Ginny,” Draco says, just as Harry prompts, “Your mother?”

“What did Ginny tell you?” Harry asks, and Draco asks, “What about my mother?”

“I didn’t—” Harry starts.

“What did you think my mother told me?”

“It’s nothing. I—she saw me. We saw each other. At Andromeda’s, while you were staying with me after you left the Manor. She wanted to know how you were doing.”

Draco knows that Harry doesn’t mean they saw each other _once_. He remembers Harry suggesting that Draco write to Narcissa and telling Draco she would be there on Christmas Eve, and he feels like an idiot for not realising it on his own.

“What did Ginny tell you?” Harry asks again when Draco doesn’t say anything.

“She told me…” He clears his throat. “She told me you proposed.”

Harry is already tense, but the line of his shoulders goes positively rigid. He closes his eyes, and a muscle twitches in his neck as he hardens his jaw.

“I think she was trying to help,” Draco says. “She came in while you were out just now, and she wanted to make me feel better. It didn’t—it didn’t work. I’m not sure I understood her right.”

“I didn’t mean it,” Harry bites out. “I didn’t _want_ —”

“I know.”

“I felt like I _should_. Like _we_ _should_ , for him. I even—I asked Arthur and Molly for their _permission_ , and they thought she would say yes. I don’t think Molly ever really believed Ginny didn’t want to. And obviously she had no idea that _I_ didn’t want to. But—Jamie,” he finishes weakly. “I would have for Jamie.”

Draco takes a deep breath. “Harry—she told me about all of them. Every time. I mean, the times before, too.”

Harry’s shoulders fall, and he holds his head in his hands. “It wasn’t anything,” he says quietly. “I just—I really thought I loved her.”

“You don’t have to explain it to me. I understand it, I really do.”

“I thought I had to,” Harry says. He won’t look back at Draco.

“You thought you were supposed to be in love with her,” Draco says. “You thought that was supposed to make you happy.”

Harry nods, crossing his arms.

“So how do I know,” Draco asks, even though he doesn’t want to, “whether you love me or just think you’re supposed to?”

At that, Harry looks at him, and the green of his eyes is overwhelming.

“I know you haven’t said you do, and I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, but—you don’t have to take care of me, Harry. You really don’t owe me anything. All you ever do is try to make other people happy, but you don’t have to do that anymore. If you’re keeping me around because you feel like you _should_ , well, I don’t need to be here. I’ll land on my feet. You’ve already done everything you can—more than enough. Do what makes you happy.”

He thinks the strained, pensive silence will continue, that perhaps Harry will say something more about how he _does_ owe Draco because all of it is his fault. He does not expect Harry to pull him close and kiss him more forcefully than he has since _before_. He does not expect Harry’s hand on his neck, fingers on his pulse, steadying him. He does not expect this desperation.

“You make me happy,” Harry says, and kisses him again. “ _You_ make me happy,” as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world, as though Draco is an idiot for ever doubting it.

“You make me happy,” Draco says against Harry’s mouth.

Harry is still afraid to break him, but Draco reassures him that he won’t. He reassures him with his hands and with his mouth, and with his words, too, because it is good to say these things out loud. Harry touches him with all of the feeling and urgency he’s been holding back, and Draco isn’t going to break. Harry uses his words, too, softly against Draco’s skin. Words like _love_ , and _mine_ , and _us_.

It feels like the first time, but without all of Draco’s nerves; the comfortable familiarity of it gives it a new sort of thrill. Harry still touches Draco in a way that feels intensely personal, in a way that soothes and excites him all at once. Harry kisses him as they move together, kisses him over and over and over, and Draco believes him.

It’s intense when he comes, making him feel so shaky and lightheaded that he remembers he’s still in recovery and definitely can’t go another round or two like they used to. Harry freezes for a second, until Draco insists that he’s all right and that Harry should fuck him all the way through it. Harry follows him down, and they lie still together, curled close around each other.

“You don’t make me feel like I should take care of you,” Harry says quietly, tracing idly over the skin of Draco’s shoulder blade. “You make me want to take care of you.”

Draco presses a kiss to his jaw.

“And before you say you don’t need anyone to take care of you,” Harry adds, “you make me want to let you take care of me, too.”

They lie awake, savouring the feeling of skin on skin, as the sky grows light outside.

—

The Wizarding world doesn’t seem to know what to do with the Harry Potter that returns to the Ministry for the first time after months of absence. He is bespectacled once more and wears faded jeans and an old, worn t-shirt. He smiles politely at the witches and wizards that stare at him, but still avoids conversation. A few unsuspecting folks even step into the lift with him, having failed to recognise their old hero. When one of them asks him what he’s wearing, he says he thought he’d like to be comfortable today.

He re-emerges in the Atrium two hours later, coming down from the first floor with Hermione Granger. The pair are deep in conversation, and both wear broad, genuine smiles. Their picture is on the front page the next day. He makes the front page almost daily for weeks: walking through Diagon Alley with Ginny Weasley and her son, visiting the Leaky Cauldron to see Hannah Abbott and Neville Longbottom, having lunch in the canteen at St. Mungo’s with Luna Lovegood. But he never seems to be doing anything _interesting_ ; there is no scandalous story behind lunch with friends. By the end of August, Harry Potter sightings slip the notice of the press entirely.

It would make the papers if they caught wind of his outings in the Muggle world. His daily walks with Draco Malfoy clearly have a story behind them—Draco holds his hand tightly all the while, and he will stop periodically to grab Harry’s arm or bury his face in the crook of his neck. Sometimes, faced with crowds, he freezes and seems not to want to walk any further, and Harry whispers to him quietly until he can move again. Draco gradually stops less frequently, and soon not at all. His hold of Harry’s hand becomes loose and voluntary rather than necessary.

James Sirius Potter has his first birthday as summer ends, and they have a modest party in the garden of the Burrow. George Weasley tells Luna and Narcissa the story of Harry showing up an hour after the birth with a well-hickeyed Draco in tow, embellishing some of the finer details. Ginny laughs riotously and kisses Harry and Draco each on the cheek.

“I’m so glad it happened like this,” Ginny says.

“Yeah,” Harry says, and Draco squeezes his hand. “Me, too.”


End file.
